Wednesday, December 2, 2009

We Can Fix This


I have learned something huge. I have learned that once you are a part of something, you know something, or trust in something you become a part of that. As for me, I am part of a diabetic community. It is a bond that cannot be explained but I often speak of it. Diabetes is something that I know and when someone misrepresents diabetes it puts a great deal of frustration on me. I know that others can agree.

It can be anything, if you know everything there is too know about hockey, and someone tells you that all hockey players are violent, you're going to want to tell them they're wrong. It will frustrate you that they are misrepresenting hockey players in general and despite there being some cases of violent hockey players it is a generalization about all hockey players.

I can think of many personal examples but one comes to mind right now. My sister, Abby, text me today to clarify what type of diabetes I had. After writing, type one, she instantly wrote back saying her teacher is dumb and believes that you can only get type one when you're born and that's it. Therefore this teacher was insisting that I had type two diabetes. This throws me back, here a teacher who has quite a bit of power in her own right, is giving false information. Not only is she sharing this with those around her but with my sister who personally knows a type 1 diabetic.

Honestly, when will it be known that if you don't know about something don't preach it. Diabetics are working hard to help people understand diabetes. We want to make sure people are aware of the differences between type 1 and type 2, yet shows like Dr.Oz and Tyra never, ever clarify if they're talking about type 1 or type 2.

How does a person know this if no one is telling them? How can we inform the public when the people with power are going against us. Type 1 diabetics can and will stand up and say, this does not apply to us! We are not fat, we couldn't prevent this, we are healthy.

I will do everything in my own power to help people better understand diabetes. I will stress the differences between type 1 and type 2. I don't care if it's annoying or repetitive. I want people to be able to correct those who are ill informed. When a person states, "obesity is on the rise, along with diabetes," I want them to state, "along with type two diabetes " not just diabetes in general. These are facts that we have managed to manipulate and be okay with, when really things need to be better researched and put forward.

Let's make this change happen. You don't have to be diabetic to help inform the public about the differences about diabetes. We can all work together to stop the conversation of, "I have diabetes," "but you're not fat?" We can fix this.

Kayla

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