Why should teens quit drinking soda when they see ad after ad telling them they’ll lose weight?

How can people make good food choices when their choices are corrupted by the food industry? Take yogurt. Some diabetics are forcing themselves to eat yogurt. The problem is they’re buying their yogurt at the grocery store and it’s nothing but sugar and transfats. No live bacteria cultures which is the whole point to eating yogurt.

Then you have the government telling people to eat more whole grains when most of diabetics are glutten intolerant.(which suppresses the thyroid)

When it comes down to it, it’s not that diabetics don’t want to take responsibility. They’re overwhemled with misinformation.

And I agree, so many people can make better choices to benefit their health. At the ’support’ classes I took when I was first diagnosed I was always the smallest (and no I was never extremely overweight). I felt angry that they really had a choice to have this disease or not. If they stuck to a diet and lost the weight, for them, the diabetes would miraculously disappear. I was very envious of them.

Sometimes I think it all started with a virus that my husband caught and passed on to me. We were both very sick for weeks. His went into double pneumonia and I ended up a severe sinus infection. It took several weeks to recuperate for both of us. Shortly after is when I started noticing that my muscles seemed always fatigued. And 10 months later I was diagnosed with diabetes. I don’t know that there is any correlation but it’s always in the back of my mind that that was when everything went bad.

After being diagnosed I went on a strict diet. And medication. When my glucose seemed to be in check I requested that I stop taking the meds and my doctor agreed. To keep my glucose levels in check I would eat very little. I had no energy and would suffer from hypoglycemia frequently. Finally, someone mentioned that I should be seeing a endrocrynologist. I made the appointment and got on the right medication and diet. It took another year for my energy levels to come back but it did. And I’m really feeling great!!

Do whatever you have to do to keep yourself in check. Seeing your mother suffer daily should be a reminder to you. Maybe you’ll never get diabetes, and I hope you never will. Take care of yourself, make good choices. Hugs to your mother.

And thanks for chatting….

I can however have a view on the thousands of children and adults in NZ who are grossly overweight, far more overweight than my mother.

Let me tell you about my week. I’ve been spending 12 hour days at the hospital supporting my mother through end stage renal failure. It’s quite a peaceful disease - you just get sleepy and stop being around so much. The Doctors have given her a neck-line for dialysis and the dialysis has brought her back. Nothing short of miraculous. However because of her weight she damaged her back years ago - the sort of injury a slimmer, fitter person would bounce back from. Now lying still for 3 hours is unbearable and it’s horrid watching a grown woman howl in pain. Soon she’ll get a perma-cath which will give her the ability to move during dialysis and eventually a fistula. In the meantime she worries that her memory is shot. We know the dialysis will help clear the fug in her head - but the nerve damage she’s experiencing in her feet is replicated in her brain (as seen in a recent CT scan) and the diabetes is slowly robbing her of her.

While there will be exceptions and unfair examples - such as you, Babs - there are also a huge number of people where it is avoidable. Pies for breakfast, inactivity and cultural acceptance of obesity take many people down a road they don’t need to travel.

It’s nearly 2 years since I made my post and I stand by it. I believe people need counseling to work through the issues about how they got obese and why they have chosen to stay obese for so long that they get sick.

Oh, and one of my babies was over 9 pounds, according to http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm I’m 10kg overweight so don’t think I’m not aware that I have my own health issues I have to confront and deal with.