To be angry with Justine Roberts

[T1mum3]

For saying on Jamie Oliver's facebook live chat that we should tell children in primary schools that they will lose a limb due to diabetes if they don't eat right? I'm angry because amongst primary school age children in the UK 5355 have Type 1 diabetes, and 7 have Type 2. Type 1 is autoimmune so not related to lifestyle.

All those kids will be fighting day and night, taking around 6 injections a day or wearing an insulin pump (putting a cannula in every two days), pricking their fingers 10 times a day and counting every single morsel of carbohydrate that passes their lips to try and keep themselves well enough to go to school and take exercise. They don't need to know about amputations yet.

99 per cent of children with diabetes have Type 1. They are made more vulnerable to bullying everyday because of the obsession with childhood obesity.

Anyone who hasn't got the message about healthy diets and kids yet obviously needs some kind of intervention. Type 2 diabetes is a huge and growing issue. But making diabetes and amputations into a boogy man to scare small children is disgusting.

lurky lurky or whatever your name is. I can't believe you can't see the difference between T1 and T2. In type 1 your pancreas fails and you stop producing insulin, something which you need to keep alive.

NOTHING anyone eats or drinks can help that. It is not made better or worse through diet. The pancreas just fails. T1 children are already well aware of taking insulin and the risks.

They don't need ill judged, ignorant and disturbing allusions made to diet by either you or Justine. Last I heard she set up a website, she isn't an endocrinologist or dietician.

Poor diet is also hugely linked to poverty so people need to wind their necks in by just saying it's easy to eat well.

TheNameIsBarbara - yes , amputation is a risk factor in any kind of diabetes. Like you I won't be telling my son about amputations, although I have had to tell him that if people with diabetes have high HBA1Cs for a long period it's not good for their bodies (in response to a poster we saw at the pharmacy). Why don't I tell him? Because instilling fear into a child that age isn't an effective strategy. He wants his BG to be mostly in range if at all possible so that he feels ok, is able to participate in sport, doesn't get headaches, etc. He's been bullied over his condition on numerous occasions. I'm sure that fear of losing a limb because of food wouldn't be a good or healthy motivator for any child (whether they have any kind of diabetes or not).

Amputation can happen with both types - the risk related to sugar control and clearly, diet is only one factor in that.

The aetiology is different, but the LT effects are similar (eye complications, neuropathy, etc...). The significant difference is that you can mitigate one of the biggest risk factors for developing type 2.

Instilling fear into children about their eating habits is stupid regardless of linking it to any particular condition because most children aren't doing their family's food shopping. Talking about a healthy, balanced diet? Great. Stressing them out that they're going to become seriously ill because of the choices their parents make? Stupid.

Justscreammumsnet - thank you for your apology, I think.... Will you be sharing this on the Jamie Oliver site also?

You make the comparison between sex education and health/nutrition education. In that scenario, what you suggested (whether you meant one kind or another) is a bit like telling children that if they are gay they are going to die of AIDS, rather than talking about sexuality in a positive, constructive way about relationships, safe sex and consent.

These illnesses really need renaming to avoid this confusion.

Health/nutrition is very important, and children should be informed.

But fully informed, not the nonsense that is often passed off as healthy eating at school and which is unbelievably harmful.

Surely any sane person can see that scaring children into not eating sweets/'bad' foods is not the way to go, not to mention the other aspect of making children scared for a relatives health - something over which they have absolutely no control whatsoever.

Sensible, fully informed education (backed up with edible, healthy school meal choices) is the way to go, not scaremongering and fear.

You can 'educate' people/children to your heart's content. Very easy when you're middle class/have money and not living on the breadline, patronising people over 'sugar is bad' and causing fears over losing limbs. Perhaps there should be more of a fight (by people not associated with that smug twit Oliver, who cannot possibly related to those in need), for healthy food to be cheaper, rather than a blame culture and fear mongering.

Does sound like a bad call there Justine - generally people should steer away from the blame culture, particularly around diet. But it's much too prominent in many areas of our society and discussions.

We need more help from government to counter the problems of an un-regulated food industry.

Leave everything to market forces and you'll end up with a whole host of issues across society.

But all that is much more relevant to type 2 diabetes as you rightly point out OP.

And scaring kids is never a great idea, even if it is halloween

"If we believe sex education is important in primary schools, why not health/nutrition education?" Excellent point Justine but of course getting the correct advice from a GP is always going to be tricky when they themselves are given very limited education in it at medical school. Add to that the chaotic approach to Carbohydrates by Diabetes UK and it's safe to say it's the blind leading the blind.

It's all very well for nice middle class mumsnet and its nice middle class representatives to join up with nice affluent Oliver and tell everyone how important it is to educate children about food. Yes. You've got a very valid point but what you're completely ignoring though is that for hundreds of thousands of those children quinoa, aubergines, and organic meat are not financially viable. It's a toss up between electricity in the meter and food on the table. Seriously, pull your heads out your nice comfortable backsides. Wtf kind of help is telling children they're going to lose limbs because their mum can't afford to feed them. Why not start a mn campaign to force change through parliament rather than buddying up with that self promoting patronising Essex twat (cause nobody else has ever had kids!) and the tilty headed "celebrity" gp. Scaremongering and blaming the poor for being poor, that's not good. It's positively Daily Mail!

I think rather than focusing on scare stories and worst case scenarios, more effort should be put into defining what a healthy diet actually looks like. Is it three square meals a day and maybe one or two healthy snacks? How often should people be eating sugar? Saying "in moderation" isn't very clear - one person's moderation could be 2 Mars bars at a time 5 days a week, where someone else's could be eating two squares of dark chocolate once a week. Is it wrong to eat chocolate every day without fail? Is it a bad idea to put sugar on your cornflakes? How often should you have pudding? What about fizzy drinks - how often should you drink those? What constitutes a good balance?

Recently diagnosed type 2. And it is probably a genetic issue with me. Also mets lots of people on courses who are not overweight. Getting really tired of all the shame associated with type 2. It's a really scary disease and the perception that it is self inflicted through overeating makes it worse.

Why don't you do the decent thing and e-mail her then, OP?

Instead of typing out an inflammatory thread.

Children don't believe the consequences will happen to them. However I would have a discussion (and do) with all my children re risks on health.

I don't think we should blame diabetics, so the narrative must be done in a no blame way, but telling children about long term problems I think is reasonable.

Everything Flying said.

I don't think there is the quality in healthy eating teaching - mine have milk or water to drink yet come home from school wanting soft drink with sweeteners because they've been taught those are healthy .

Plus we are surrounded by working poor - poor in money and time and it often those children who have poor diets some are obese others thin - though the thin children can be just as at risk the whole skinny fat - look thin but have fat deposit round internal organs which are high risk factor for diabetes.

Current school runs lots of sports things, has program of cheap veg and fruit co-op scheme, had free and subsidies fruit and veg at breaks and tried for healthy school dinners and regularly campaigns to parnets for health packed lunches even offering prizes. They also in partnership with EU funded groups health cooking programs for parents and information sheets. I think this is the stuff that is needed and less scare mongering.

I'm bewildered by the hate towards Jamie Oliver on Mumsnet. If you look at his obesity plan (on phone, can't link) it includes pretty much all the suggestions on this thread I think including action by parliament.

He might put his foot in his mouth occasionally but he's consistently campaigned for better child nutrition, good school meals, meaningful apprenticeships for underprivileged youngsters, better food education. Suspect he's done a lot more good than most of us have ever done.

Debska - me too, huge genetic links

There are some people I know who are morbidly obese, borderline diabetic, who cut out the crap for a few months, bg drops, then they go back to eating the crap, and so it continues.

But there are plenty of people with type 2 who don't do that and this constant shaming from the media and other non-experts (I'm looking at you justine) is really damaging. As a pp said, being overweight is a risk factor, not a cause of diabetes.

I'd also like to reference mumsnet's "this is my child" campaign. My child's a super achieving amazing kid but this picture shows what we do every night, every two or three hours through the night. He has the right not to be scared or bullied because of some bandwagon.

It's the same with the breastfeeding stuff - endless lecturing, and very little concrete help for poor families. My family member's obese teens get endless bloody lectures, shame, and absolutely no concrete help with how to shop and cook healthily when they have parents holding on to their sanity by their fingertips, and live in a dump with poor cooking facilities. I like Jamie Oliver and mumsnet but where is the practical help?

School education on diet/healthy food is rubbish, in most respects. They tell children that things like cheese are "bad foods," so my child refused to eat cheese for ages. But yet while they are going on about these bad foods, the school lunches served at those very same schools are abysmal. How about teaching by example? Not giving out sweets as rewards in school? We had an ongoing battle with one teacher who insisted on handing out boiled sweets and lollipops for treats in class, even though I had told her repeatedly that my child cannot have them due to dental issues. She'd literally hold it out in front of him at pick up time and say to me "is he still not allowed to have these?" Thanks, now I have a meltdown on my hands.

If JO wants to sort out education on healthy diets, perhaps he needs to revisit the school meals thing and get with a dietician/nutritionist to see where schools can approach it better within the schools themselves.

Scare tactics are not helpful.

TresDesolee, we'll agree to disagree. I find his patronising attitude grating. It's little wonder that people can't get into 'healthy eating' with such a wet lettuce as him heading the campaign. As for 'sitcking his foot in his mouth', he's been actually offensive on more than one occasion. He's a bit of a joke in America, many people here don't like him - people don't listen to people they can't relate to. As far as I'm concerned, if thrush had a human form, it would be him.