I have type 2 diabetes and have had for a
number of years. I don’t hide this fact, but I also haven’t advertised it to
anyone who doesn’t need to know until this moment.
Recently there has been quite a lot on the
news about the dangers of diabetes and the fact it is a route to a shorter life
and the dangers of losing limbs and other complications. It has made me think
about why I don’t really tell people and how I feel about the way the story has
been covered. I got quite angry with some of the coverage. I think part of the
reason for this is that those of us with type 2 diabetes are the ‘bad’
diabetics. We can all feel sorry for those with type 1 because they are the
unfortunate people whose pancreas just stopped working for some unknown reason,
whereas we are the ones who brought it all on ourselves by being lazy, greedy
and eating all the wrong things. So we should be ashamed of ourselves. Maybe
this is why I haven’t said much. Yes, I am overweight and I know I can blame
nobody but myself for this, however there are much fatter people than me around
who haven’t yet succumbed.
I have been fighting a battle with my
weight from the age of about 13 when my mum first took me to a slimming club
with her. And yet looking back at photos of myself I don’t look particularly
overweight. So a habit of yoyo dieting was started, and a way of looking at my
body as the enemy which never looked the way I wanted it to.
What was thought of then as healthy eating
was all low fat. A low fat diet, however, can be quite unhealthy. Because what
I didn’t realise all those years ago is that to make food low fat,
manufacturers substitute sugar to give the flavour that is lost. We now know is
that eating too much sugar puts stress on the pancreas that can cause insulin
resistance and eventually lead to type 2 diabetes. So ironically my healthy
eating as a teenager may have contributed to the eventual development of my
diabetes.
I am not looking for sympathy here, just a
little more understanding from people that I am not necessarily someone who
just sits in the house and eats all day, and perhaps give a warning to some to
not only watch the fat in their diet, but also the sugar.
