Two Kinds

It seems now every channel I turn on or everywhere I go there are signs, commercials, speeches, shows about diabetes. All these things were probably there before, but obviously I didn't have a reason to notice them. It doesn't remind me of my diabetes when I come across a commercial that says, "Are you diabetic! Do you have health insurance!" because I never forget that I have this disease but sometimes I get frustrated because I feel that overall diabetes is classified as a disease you get from being fat.

Now, before I was educated on diabetes I admit that I thought there was only one type of diabetes and it was from eating too much junk food. Now, I am sure a lot of people think the same way as I did. It's true there is a kind of diabetes that most people get from eating junk food and living an unhealthy lifestyle, and there are just people who get it in old age. But there is the kind of diabetes that I have, type 1 that has nothing to do with the food I've ate or the physical activity that I do, that's type 1.

I was watching the Tyra show and it was about children that weigh over 90 kilograms. These very obsese children came on the show and talked about their unhealthy eating habits and obsession with food. One girl stated that she has diabetes and Tyra gasped, "diabetes at age thirteen," the girl nodded and nothing else was said. So would someone uneducated about diabetes think that everyone that has diabetes get's it from being obese and not active?

It makes me wonder if someone who never met me, was told that I had diabetes would they think that I was fat? obese? lazy? I hope that with my notes and education about diabetes that I can make people aware that there are two types of diabetes.

Kayla