Appalling statement

[Northerner]

I'm pretty disgusted by this statement in today's Telegraph 'news' story about NHS funding for obesity:

Much of the NHS budget will be eaten away by type-2 diabetes, a classic ?lifestyle disease?. Eating too much and not exercising are the main cause for the 2.3million sufferers in Britain. Treatment already swallows 10 per cent of the budget. The number of patients with it is predicted by the charity Diabetes UK to top four million by 2025.

This is the story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/e...The-cash-starved-NHS-might-not-treat-you.html

I really, really want to swear when I see vile nonsense like this 😡

 

[AlisonM]

And they won't take a blind bit of notice if we write to correct them either. You'd just see the same old, tired nonsense being spouted again in a month or so.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Outrageous!

Classic lazy band-wagon jumping journalism.

They should be ashamed.

What about the hundreds of thousands of normal or underweight T2s? And all the others for whom diagnosis is far from a 'lifestyle choice' but a simple matter of genetics.

This kind of ignorant, bile-soaked nonsense would get the journalist (and paper itself) in major legal trouble if they were repeating various other wildly inaccurate stereotypes ("ooooh black people are all good at sports aren't they" or something similarly stupid) .

Grrrr 😡

 

[Steff]

Oh nothing surprises me I think we are used to seeing all these bull by now..Another tabloid that has no idea what it is writing and just jumps on the band wagon

 

[AlisonM]

I couldn't resist it, I just had to post my pennyworth.

 

[Caroline]

I am not even going to look at the article as I'll end up swearing at them...

 

[Dizzydi]

I am not even going to look at the article as I'll end up swearing at them...

I looked and now I'm swearing ............................ how dare they!!

Much of the NHS budget will be eaten away by type-2 diabetes, a classic ?lifestyle disease?. Eating too much and not exercising are the main cause for the 2.3million sufferers in Britain.

Can you tell I eat to much by my profile picture - omg I need to go on a diet and exercise more!! what total tosh

They make me so so so angrey - it's about time the professionals put the media right!!

 

[Northerner]

...They make me so so so angrey - it's about time the professionals put the media right!!

I've asked DUK to correct them on twitter and Facebook, they are forwarding it to their press team. As Mike says, if they said this type of thing about other things they'd be in big trouble for it.

 

[lucy123]

I have exercised 4 times a week as long as I can remember before diagnosis, so don't agree with the exercise bit at all. Problem is they would get me on the overweight issue - but doesn't gretchen suggest it can be diabetes itself that causes us to be overweight????

 

[Northerner]

I have exercised 4 times a week as long as I can remember before diagnosis, so don't agree with the exercise bit at all. Problem is they would get me on the overweight issue - but doesn't gretchen suggest it can be diabetes itself that causes us to be overweight????

Indeed! Plus, the overweight people in this country far outnumber the people with diabetes. Pulling a figure out of the air, let's say 30% of the population are overweight, but only 10% have diabetes - that means you are LESS likely to have diabetes if you are overweight!

 

[Dizzydi]

Sorry to rant again, but it has got right up my nose!!

Much of the NHS budget will be eaten away by type-2 diabetes, a classic “lifestyle disease”. Eating too much and not exercising are the main cause for the 2.3million sufferers in Britain

What about all the rest of the population who are over weight yet lucky enough to not be T2!! Will this not cause a drain?

Sorry Northy was typing as you was - you said what I wanted to say in a more diplomatic manner

 

[Lewy]

You all can make a difference, I would recommend that everyone who has a blog based around Diabetes writes their 2 pence using the keywords; Telegraph, Diabetes, Misrepresentation in the title of the blog post, as well as throughout the content. I also have two blogs that are included in Google News (http://news.google.co.uk) so will be able to get some free publicity on those which I will write blog posts for after work.

The goal is to kick up as much fuss about the Telegraph as possible to damage their reputation on publishing nonfactual information. Once we have a network of posts we can put a forum post together and harrass them on social networks (Twitter/Facebook) to apologise and retract that statement from their article.

Everyone game?

 

[mikeinspain]

Just an idea!

Why not complain directly to the Telegraph??

If someone was able to come up a with short note asking the editorial team to review the content due to the factual information being incorrect then, we could all send in our complaint.

You can contact them here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/form/

Fill out your details, select Editorial from the drop down box and enter your message.

 

[Hazel]

As a clinically VERY obese type 2 diabetic, I feel I have an input to make on this subject.

I have to say that unlike Northy, I agree with the article - TO A POINT.

Yes, I am overweight, yes, I eat too much, yes, I don't exercise enough (none at all), but no matter what I do, I will remain diabetic.

This generation and the NHS, will have to suck this fact up - the main issue to be addressed is how we teach future generations to eat a healthy and balanced diet, get kids out and about away from computers and gameboys, etc. and exercise more, making exercise accessible and fun.

I know there are some T2s that have no weight issues, some have genetic predisposition to the condition, but let's be honest, a large %age of T2s are overweight, most VERY overweight.

I have known that the sxxx would hit the fan. A close friend of mine who works in a doctors surgery as a practice manager, told me the following. Just before the stop smoking thing was introduced, All GPs were advised that if it proved a success and smokers stopped, the next target group would be the T2 diabetics, to lose weight, with the threat of no NHS operations, until they lost weight might work..

I have said repeatedly, I am grateful not to have to pay for my diabetic meds, but I wouldn't mind paying for non diabetic meds.

To go back to the main issue the newspaper article, no I am not offended to be to called an obese T2 - cos I am.

My mail here is in no way meant to be contentious, it is just my opinion

 

[Andy HB]

Much as I understand the indignation here, I'm afraid that I'm going to go against the flow a bit, but only on a personal basis.

My diabetic symptoms were a direct result of my poor lifestyle and since I've turned that around, I am no longer feeling the full effects of those symptoms. Granted, I may have been genetically pre-disposed to type 2 diabetes, but I am pretty certain that I would not have felt its effects so early had I remained an active and properly fed individual!

I am sure that there will be others for whom this is true too, but it is NOT true for everyone.

Andy

 

[Andy HB]

As a clinically VERY obese type 2 diabetic, I feel I have an input to make on this subject.

I have to say that unlike Northy, I agree with the article - TO A POINT.

Yes, I am overweight, yes, I eat too much, yes, I don't exercise enough (none at all), but no matter what I do, I will remain diabetic.

This generation and the NHS, will have to suck this fact up - the main issue to be addressed is how we teach future generations to eat a healthy and balanced diet, get kids out and about away from computers and gameboys, etc. and exercise more, making exercise accessible and fun.

I know there are some T2s that have no weight issues, some have genetic predisposition to the condition, but let's be honest, a large %age of T2s are overweight, most VERY overweight.

I have known that the sxxx would hit the fan. A close friend of mine who works in a doctors surgery as a practice manager, told me the following. Just before the stop smoking thing was introduced, All GPs were advised that if it proved a success and smokers stopped, the next target group would be the T2 diabetics, to lose weight, with the threat of no NHS operations, until they lost weight might work..

I have said repeatedly, I am grateful not to have to pay for my diabetic meds, but I wouldn't mind paying for non diabetic meds.

To go back to the main issue the newspaper article, no I am not offended to be to called an obese T2 - cos I am.

My mail here is in no way meant to be contentious, it is just my opinion

SNAP!!!

 

[Northerner]

Much as I understand the indignation here, I'm afraid that I'm going to go against the flow a bit, but only on a personal basis.

My diabetic symptoms were a direct result of my poor lifestyle and since I've turned that around, I am no longer feeling the full effects of those symptoms. Granted, I may have been genetically pre-disposed to type 2 diabetes, but I am pretty certain that I would not have felt its effects so early had I remained an active and properly fed individual!

I am sure that there will be others for whom this is true too, but it is NOT true for everyone.

Andy

Andy, that may well be the case and I'm sure that there are a lot of people for which the same may be true - I don't think people are claiming they are whiter than white. The statement by the Telegraph, however, says that it is purely a lifestyle disease and used highly emotive language in order to pour the blame for a large part of the NHS's problems on people's supposed laziness, when that simply cannot be supported.

 

[Andy HB]

Andy, that may well be the case and I'm sure that there are a lot of people for which the same may be true - I don't think people are claiming they are whiter than white. The statement by the Telegraph, however, says that it is purely a lifestyle disease and used highly emotive language in order to pour the blame for a large part of the NHS's problems on people's supposed laziness, when that simply cannot be supported.

I think that I'll go and read the article now 😉

Andy

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Andy and Hazel

Thank you for your head-above-the-parapet posts. 🙂

My problem with the article though (and with lots of other lazy diabetes-related journalism) is that it just reinforces a preconception. Many people have been taught to believe that ALL diabetes, without exception is caused by us all cramming our faces with cake all day long, never doing any exercise and generally just not looking after ourselves and waiting for everyone else to pick up the expensive medical bills. Kids at school diagnosed with type 1 are bullied by peers who tell them it's all their own fault. If they hadn't eaten too many sweets they would have been fine.

(My mum still blames herself for my own type 1 diagnosis and is wary of what the grandchildren eat and if they will get it too)

As you point out, from your own experience, some people feel that they have contributed in some way towards their diagnosis by their diet/lifestyle choices, but the causal link between being overweight and developing T2 is far from clear.

There is no way of knowing, for instance, that had you never been overweight in your lives, that you would not have been one of the many standard-weight people diagnosed T2 every year at exactly the point when you were diagnosed T2 and blamed your 'lifestyle' for it.

You believe you brought it on yourselves because you've read, or been told that you did.

Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, who knows? But the meeeja (and sometimes DUK and the NHS themselves) are pretty relentless in reinforcing the suggestion that all t2s are fat, lazy and have only themselves to blame. No wonder the public believe it!

M

 

[MargB]

Also, the argument put forward by Gretchen in her book is that the onset of diabetes could cause the weight to pile on so then when it happens, we feel guilty.

My doctor went to great lengths to assure me that it was not my fault, that with my genetic makeup it was when rather than if.