I’m on a forum for something parented related. There’s a thread going on about what you feed your kids and of course the whole “diabetes is preventable if you don’t feed your kid crap” thing came up. I let the poster know that there are different types and my son didn’t develop it from diet, it’s an autoimmune problem. So she backed down, apologized, but now is going on about it again. Why on earth do people not look things like this up before they spill out crap like this? Before diagnosis, I didn’t know much about it but I’d never make such a bold statement before at least googling it! I admit I don’t know much about type 2, so I don’t talk about it.
Alison - I know exactly what you mean. If I have one more person ask me if my daughter ate a lot of sugar, was a fat toddler (which is laughable since she used to do yogilates with me and had a washboard stomach at 3),etc I am likely to scream The thing that makes it worse is that you already educated them once and they’re doing it again! FRUSTRATING!
I think some parents just have a hard time thinking that a perfectly healthy child can get sick one day. I know one of my friends has a child the same age as Tony and it kind of freaks her out. I hear the whole sugar thing too much lol, we need to make t-shirts saying something like that!
I was diagnosed at 4 years old and never got to eat anything good as a kid—i have 2 boys now, neither diabetic - and i let them eat pretty much whatever they want—(within reason of course) - i figure, have at it now boys, you never know what tomorrow will bring—maybe i am letting them have what i missed out on or maybe i am a cool mom that buys cool snacks—of course, i know by saying all this that there is some health nut out there thinking that my kids will be fat…or some Negative Nelly thinking they wont develop good eating habits - that forum you speak of would hate me. Oh well.
I know what you mean…
When I was diagnosed with type 1 (I was 16), my best friend’s mother actually said this to my mother:
“You know, neither of my kids will get diabetes because they didn’t eat sugar when they were little.”
Seriously??? Wtf???
People who do this are trying to help, but they do not understand enough about what disease is and are usually just re-iterating something they have heard from someone else. There are many factors that play into why a young person (or any person) develops an autoimmune disease. Diet CAN be a contributing factor in development of diabetes (types 1 and 2) but it is not limited to this as the basis for creation. *see note below
Other factors such as emotional trauma (inherited or recent experiences), birth trauma, lack of love/touch, exposure to environmental stressors like radiation, exposure to emotional stresses from parents (consciously or subconsciously on the parents part), the child’s inherent capacity to handle specific lack of essential nutrients, his or her genetic material (inherited strength of the body), the type of parasites, virus, yeast or bacteria that may live inside of the child, energetic blocks in the body’s meridian network which affect all organs and systems in the body and the type of vaccines, medications, medical trauma & toxins they were already exposed to.
We are (as a social mass) extremely under educated about what health is and how to create/sustain it. People should read more and educate themselves about real medicine and get away from the allopathic situation that has taken over our lives and families. Remember that when you Google general keywords, the links that come up first are based on statistics of hits for that link, so you are reading the ‘popular’ information. When you go to the doctor and ask his/her ‘opinion’ you are receiving the ‘popular’ information with little reference to anything outside of this box of thinking. Doctors are taught medicine within a highly rigid manner of educational confine which, in turn, creates an indirect disservice to the people because we get stuck in patterns of belief.
*Diabetes in indigenous peoples and African Americans is mostly related to the diet changes that they were exposed to in the late 19th century. The Navajo (and other tribes) had almost no occurrence of the disease before extreme diet changes, which began with government food programs of highly refined foods and are now afflicted with four times the amount of people with diabetes. The genetics of African Americans and American Indians have not had any time to adapt to the dietary changes and this is why they have a genetic predisposition to create diabetes.
In the past twenty years there’s been a ton of research about diet and lifestyle and their effect on health. And it’s great that we are focusing more on preventative care, but along the way it has become socially acceptable to blame people for their ill health. It’s horrible that we’ve forgotten that the way to respond to sickness is with sympathy and not blame.
I agree! There is such a fine line between trying to help and judging… a very sensible area when as parents, we know we are doing our best. And that means the world!
However, there is so much information to digest in relation to diabetes, diet, lifestyle and prevention; it is understandable that some people get confused or opinionated. Anyway, I wanted let all parents of children with diabetes that I deeply admire the strength you must have to keep it up.
Type 2 Diabetes probably isn’t caused by feeding kids crap, either. The incidence has shot up in children much too young to have become diabetic from diet.
It’s probably a sign of genetic damage from the high levels of industrial chemicals in our water and air, and possibly the plastics that surround us.
It takes decades for an obese adult to begin to show blood sugar abnormalities, but we have kids in elementary school with type 2 diabetes now. And we know in animal studies that that kind of early onset obesity is ALWAYS a sign of subtle genetic damage.
But it is much easier to blame the parents than it is to look into what in our environment has cause a huge, and to me, terrifying epidemic of both diabetes and obesity.
The mainstream obesity research shows that you can’t make genetically normal people obese by overfeeding, BTW. They will gain weight if force fed, but it comes right off as soon as you stop overfeeding. Gina Kolata’s book, “Rethinking Thin” has a nice overview of the mainstream weight-related research. And most obese people do NOT have Type 2 diabetes (and many non-obese people do.)
Type 1s should not fall into the trap of believing the “blame the victim” message that the media promote about Type 2 diabetes. It is not any more true, based on the research, than the idea that you caused your child’s autoimmune diabetes.
I have documented some of the research that backs this up on my web page at http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php “You did not cause your diabetes with reckless overeating.” I have had dozens of people write to me that this was the most important page about diabetes they ever read because it did away with the self-hatred that stems from misunderstanding the causes of Type 2 and replaced that with an understanding that they were dealing with clearly-proven genetic abnormalities, that, among other things, makes it very easy to get fat.
I think these parents are just scared, so in order to believe that it won’t (can’t) happen to them they blame the victim. You see it all the time. It’s a coping mechanism.
I’d feed my kid whatever he wanted within reason if I could too! As long as they exercise or get off the couch it’s all good-there’s a thing called moderation 
argghh! I hate ignorance!
I agree, I think it’s part of our nature now to place blame, no one wants to take responsibility or acknowledge that bad things can randomly happen.
thanx for educating me about type 2, like I said before I don’t know too much about it so I don’t make statements My great grandfather had it, and he had the old school diet of non processed foods (cause seriously they didn’t have that 100 years ago) and he was a normal weight.
Yes, there are lots of causes/contributing factors to type 2 diabetes, everyBODY is different!
There’s a really great book by a researcher at Yale called “Food Fight” that talks about how the rise of diabetes and obesity in this country, especially among youth, is more a product of environmental factors than simply “choosing to be unhealthy.” It’s a good read.
Actually, there is no research out there to show that diet is a contributing factor to type 1 diabetes. It is an autoimmune disease, which means it is entirely cellularly based. Yes, genetics (as you put it: “inherited strength of the body” - not exactly), has some factor in the MHC genes (google it.), but the underlying cellular cause is not yet known.
that’s so true!
I read some study that said there’s a higher percentage of people with t1 that were born in August, they think it’s some environmental thing. Tony was born in August, we lived right next to a navy airfield for the first 15 months of his life so I knew he was getting some nasty toxins 
It also seems a lot were born in July. Seems there have been a lot of birthdays on the site this month!
I agee, but I don’t think it’s just parents that are scared. I think anyone would rather blame the person or the family, because diabetes could strike anyone at anytime. That is the truly scary thought.