@Spirit01 , I guess if you were a firefighter in 1985, you are over the age of retirement now? With T2.
So one of the ‘Boomer’ generation , like me. Our parents will have known the ’deprivation’ of war time rationing, and, so when we were kids, perhaps we were ‘indulged’ a little? I have clear early memories of being taken to the NHS baby clinic where my mother was encouraged to give us concentrated orange juice, and rose hip syrup, for the fortified vitamin C. It was also full of sugar, which she was reliably informed by the health visitor was important to give children energy! Likewise the glucose tablets to help us stay bright and alert. Didn’t do our teeth much good, but we certainly had the energy to run outside around the farm fields and woodlands, from dawn to dusk. School dinners were carb based. It was a cheap way to feed lots of kids. Fast forward to early adulthood, and busy working lives. Were we brainwashed that breakfast cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals and ‘roughage’, as fibre was then known, were the best start to the day. Also busy working lives, and convenience foods were there to help us get through life. Vesta dried meals, anybody?
. Low fat advice later, especially if we were carrying a bit to much weight. The mantra ’You are what you eat’, ‘fat makes you fat’
. Who is to blame? I don’t think in those early days anyone was. The culture at the time, maybe. Those early health care workers, our parents, were only acting on the knowledge they had.
Following diagnosis, yes, the advice for me as an obese T2, was not helpful at all. Starchy carbs with every meal, then when that made things worse the only solution offered bariatric surgery. No blame apportioned to the HCPs making those decisions for me. They don’t have the time or the inclination, in the main ,to research other ways. Had I not done my own research, and found my own, individual pathto management, then I would only have myself to blame.
Not easy, though, and we all need a bit of help and guidance from time to time from others who are on a similar path.
edit of typo