Not News

January 17, 2012

Not News

The website Fark makes fun of news stories that are not, actually, news.

Example: Students Discover Desks Have More Germs Than Toilets

Why isn’t it news? Well, it’s a common story that pops up once a year or two, and relies on people not thinking about which is more likely to get janitorial attention.

Today my Google Health section looked a bit like Fark.

First: Paula Deen has diabetes. Because she’s fat and publishes “unhealthy” recipes, she’s being blamed for “bringing it on herself” with unhealthy food. Fat people being blamed for their health problems, gee, where have I heard that before.

( Never mind that Ms Deen is 64 and the American Diabetes Association states that the risk of type 2 diabetes goes up with age — 26.9% of people over 65 have it. Or that the American Diabetes Association states that “Most overweight people never develop type 2 diabetes” and that eating sugar doesn’t cause diabetes.)

Second: obesity rates? Were leveling off in 2010. And 2007. Lots of stories about it in the last 4 years. Um….

Rate this:

Anti-fat bigotry, Diabetes, News

Posted by:

Living 400lbs

I blog about what it’s like to be live life at about 400lbs. :)

12 responses to “Not News”

faycinacroud

January 18, 2012 at 1:28 am

Funny enough, my mother concern-trolled my 300 pound ass the other night because Teh Diabeetus runs in our family. Her mother (who was not obese) had it! And her grandmother (who was obese, but who lived to be 80 and whose death was brought about by acute myelogenous leukemia, which has nothing to do with weight) PROBABLY had it, but of course we have no way of proving it–the woman died before I was born. Plus, I have mild hypertension, which onset when I was 45, and everyone knows that hypertension is weight related! Never mind that my father was not overweight when he had a stroke at age 68, and at that point it was discovered that he had previously undiagnosed hypertension and atherosclerosis. Or that my brother, who is not overweight, was discharged from the army because of hypertension–at age 19. (I had previously thought he was discharged because of asthma.) Nope–never mind that none of these other people were overweight or that only a few people in her family have ended up with Teh Diabeetus, and it was always when they were older. My fatness is going to wind me up dead, probably in my 80’s or 90’s like most of the women in my family. But in my case it will be my fault because I was fat.

Reply
Nellie

January 18, 2012 at 2:29 am

This was very timely for me.Thank you. My blood sugar was elevated last time it was tested, which is new. I’m 57 and fat (I was on steroids for 10 years, got Cushings, and never got thin again). I immediately thought it was all my fault for eating sugar – but I have never binged and don’t eat candy bars. I have a lot to learn about Teh Diabeetus.

Reply
Bree

January 18, 2012 at 12:03 pm

If Paula Deen wasn’t known for her cooking and obesity wasn’t such a moral panic du jour, this would probably not even be news. But since she is, it is, and the medical community wants so much to label type II diabetes as a disease only fat people get, the shame goes on.

Reply
1. Living 400lbs
  
  January 18, 2012 at 6:52 pm
  
  I think a BIG part of the problem (besides the demonization of fat) is that many (if not most) people with type 2 diabetes are fat. Most fat people don’t get type 2 diabetes, but when most people who have it are fat, it means that those who treat diabetes assume that fat = diabetes.
  
  Reply
  1. Erin S.
    
    January 18, 2012 at 11:19 pm
    
    I agree… people see people with type 2 diabetes who are fat and they assume that the fatness caused the diabetes, rather than being diabetic causes fatness. Never even occurs to them because the entire narrative about diabetes – at least as far as mainstream information sources goes – is always “fat causes diabetes, eating sugar causes diabetes”.
    
    As far as that latter claim goes, it infuriates me… just because your body cannot process something does not mean that that thing caused your body to get whatever disease/syndrome/failure that makes it unable to process it!
    
    You almost never hear “oh he has a peanut allergy, it’s his own fault for eating peanuts!” or “she has celiac disease, she totally deserves it for eating wheat!”
    
    And both of those *can* crop up later in life — my mother ate just tons of peanut butter all her life, and then in her 60’s suddenly started getting allergic reactions to peanuts. Not sure if gluten allergies appearing in 30+ year old people is a case of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed celiac disease or a case of the sensitivity not showing up until later or for that matter, it was there all along and the symptoms just got worse over time.
    
    But you get what I’m getting at I hope.
    
    Reply
  2. Amber
    
    January 19, 2012 at 5:54 am
    
    I don’t know about “many if not most” people in the general population, but ALL the people in my family who have Type II are NOT fat. In fact, they are some of the skinniest ones. The plural of anecdote is not data, but if even the FA community has this misperception about diabetes, how can we be shocked that it’s shared by the general public?
    
    Reply
lifegetsbetter

January 18, 2012 at 3:03 pm

It’s really not funny how people with type 2 diabetes are routinely blamed for what are basically symptoms of our disease. We are expected to somehow overcome our faulty metabolism, the intense hunger and tiredness, and magically achieve a weight loss that is already almost impossible for healthy fat people.

In my case yes, I saw it coming. For 15 years I tried to battle what I suspected was an insulin resistance problem, with absolutely no help from doctors. I was refused an oral glucose load test several times because my fasting blood glucose was normal. But I knew something was amiss, not because I was fat, but because of my constant hunger and tiredness. I tried time and again to be on that 5% that somehow manages to keep the weight off. I don’t know if my dieting efforts helped or made things worse in the long run. Losing weight certainly didn’t help my symptoms. What I feel now is that this was a train coming to me at full speed and I was expected to stop it with a wooden barrier.

Reply
1. Erin S.
  
  January 18, 2012 at 11:24 pm
  
  Wooden barrier? Try paper. Tissue paper. WET tissue paper. For all the help people who are insulin resistant and/or suspect they are get from the medical establishment that’s about what it amounts to. I totally get what you’re saying about that.
  
  The thing that simply infuriates me is how it is only the “obesity diseases” where we are expected to cure a symptom of the disease, by ourselves, and without ANY help whatsoever for the *actual disease*. Not even research really.
  
  You won’t see anyone telling a cancer patient “just stop producing abnormal cells and that cancer won’t be a problem” or someone with a broken leg “just stop limping”. But someone with diabetes, even the potential for it? Or PCOS, most kinds of heart disease, hell *knee pain* regardless of the actual cause. *ALL* we get is “lose weight fatty”!
  
  Like I said, it’s INFURIATING!
  
  Reply
closetpuritan

January 19, 2012 at 5:02 pm

“No one vilifies Michelin chefs for putting sticks of butter in their food. But when a Southern woman does it, that’s tacky.” — Virginia Willis, Atlanta food writer in NYT article that you linked to.

Reply
fivehundredpoundpeep

January 20, 2012 at 3:40 pm

I posted about Deen

http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2012/01/paula-deen-has-diabetes.html

I fear this being used to blame more people with diabetes.

I hate that she even took on diabetes. Couldn’t she keep her mouth shut?

Insulin resistance PRIOR to being superfat–endless hunger, brown spots is part of my medical picture. I still struggle with hunger even now.

I just wish Deen had just kept to the cooking and stayed off the diabetes/health stuff. It does contradict.

One thing a friend told me about diabetes, if you live long enough, you get thin from severe diabetes. She told me 500lb friends stripped down to nearly nothing. Do not know if that is true. Just found it interesting.

I know some here may not agree with some opinions about the Food Network, I do call it the Food Porn channel and wish they made realistic food, not everything cheese laden and expensive.

Reply
1. Living 400lbs
  
  January 20, 2012 at 9:07 pm
  
  Unusual weight loss is listed as a symptom of diabetes. A relative of mine lost 60lbs in 3 months and was thrilled…then she collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. She was quickly diagnosed.
  
  Reply
hopefulandfree

January 22, 2012 at 11:31 pm

she makes one helluva pumpkin cheesecake and i’m sorry she got sick. she’s lucky though because diabetes is often a SIGNIFICANTLY worse disease for folks living in lower socioeconomic conditions who can’t afford proper treatment. in addition, social injustice (inequities) result in increased chronic stress (such as enduring repeated & unpredictable losses) from life’s daily struggles to meet basic needs, which also makes it harder for patients to keep b.g. levels stable. long-term outcomes for diabetes often depend more on social determinants, not on personal choices.

Reply