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.

What no one has mentioned so far is teenagers and teenage rebellion.

Children who have been living with long term conditions often rebel by not taking meds, or doing things to endanger their health.

Think about an overweight diabetic 14 year old - lets make her a girl, she is overweight because that's what insulin does to some people. She has a double stigma - overweight and long term health problem.

If she skips her insulin she will lose weight, she will also be rebelling as much as her friends who are wearing thigh skimming school skirts, but she could end up blind and facing amputation.

And Justine you want her and her friends to be told that if she didn't eat junk food, and lost some weight she would be healthier?

Can't you see just how damaging this can be? How damaging it already is?

Sorry for the mirror link

www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/diabetic-teen-called-whale-school-5427467

Personally I think Justine has a huge amount of influence and has achieved a massive amount. I would hate for this thread to get too personal and then end up being deleted.

The unit is in Nottingham plenty and no I don't work for them so your insinuation that I receive a grant from them is incorrect.

Working out which ideas works I think is very valid. They do look at strategies which might help and I would think they are more effective than an Internet forum.

No ones mentioned diabetes insipedus either.

Everything that Sashh said. Imagine being that girl. You're going through puberty and not only is that not easy for many girls, the hormones are making you insulin resistant and your blood sugars are too high. Your ever-increasing insulin doses are doing little to lower them but are making you gain weight. You go to clinic where you are weighed with no privacy and lectured on your weight gain and glucose levels.

So there you are with this stupid useless body that doesn't work right, is bloating before your eyes and nothing you're doing to lose weight or control your diabetes is working. And society is judging you as a lazy-arsed burger muncher because having a serious medical issue doesn't get you out of body fascism for free.

Combine all of that with the fact that food isn't a pleasure. It's a poison and a medicine. It can't just be enjoyed, it has to be weighed and measured and dosed for. It's frankly a wonder to me that all T1s aren't eating-disordered in some way. We certainly don't and can't have a normal relationship with food.

And there we have someone who is neither an endocrinologist, a person with diabetes or a person who lives with diabetes, telling these kids they're going to have amputations because they are fat.

And her fans lecturing on how she should get a free pass on that because she's influential? Brain blown. Isn't that precisely why she shouldn't be letting whatever wanders across her brain spill out of her mouth?

concrete on the ground empathy, practical help - I agree with the poster who said that scaring children isn't the way to change teenagers' minds: all of my family were of an age where we were relentlessly pummeled with scare tactics around smoking, (school in 80s and 90s and all of them except me (where's my halo) smoked because it was part of our family culture, live in an area where most people smoke, are poor and have poor mental health. I really disagree that these high level pushes do much good, what they do do, is make poor people feel even more ashamed. Personally I reckon that's worse because when people feel bad they often don't try to act better.

Any sign of an apology on JO's Facebook site?

oldboot showing my teenage DD the complications that she will likely encounter, and the surgery she is likely to end up with has been largely the only thing that has got her to comply with treatment. (It's not diabetes)

But Ive no idea whether it would work for anyone else.

it is indeed complicated hive maybe I shouldn't generalize - i'm glad it worked for you, that there was a lever that worked, it must've been a horrible worry for you

I don't think there is one way that suits everyone.

Very thought-provoking posts OP

I can't understand how a "celebrity chef", television GP, and website founder felt that they were the most appropriate choice for a live webchat about a serious disease. Were there no Dietitians or Diabetes Consultants available? I found it rather embarrassing tbh

I know this isn't a terribly nice comment, but JO (in recent pictures, at least) does not present as particularly healthy looking - certainly not 'slim'.

I just feel that at the end of the day, this is about sparing an already cash-strapped NHS a few quid by 'blaming' illnesses on the individuals afflicted by them. You can 'educate' all you like, but until healthy food becomes affordable for all, it's a pointless exercise. When I was a child, ready -meals were an extravagance; now they often cost less than the price of making a meal from scratch.

Get angry about that, not about 'parental ignorance'.

If she skips her insulin she will lose weight, she will also be rebelling as much as her friends who are wearing thigh skimming school skirts, but she could end up blind and facing amputation.

I had a friend who regularly skipped her insulin for these reasons and this is a very valid point. Worsening the stigma around diabetes and being overweight really does fuck with the minds of diabetic teenage girls who are already suffering.

"I just feel that at the end of the day, this is about sparing an already cash-strapped NHS a few quid by 'blaming' illnesses on the individuals afflicted by them"

THIS!

Not diabetes related but on one of the weight threads an MNer posted that a consultant had a go at her about her weight at exactly the same time as writing out a prescription for more steroids.

After that MNer "lost it" at the consultant , from her next visit onwards she was prescribed the more expensive £12,000 a year injections of an alternative medication.

Incredibly hypocritical.

No official apology yet on JO's facebook then?

any word on it at all, Justine you've gone quiet?

Really so disappointed that Justine didn't come back to this thread.

Are you surprised?

I got diabetes as a child.. as an adult I haven't lost any limbs yet but I very nearly went blind due to not eating right.

I knew the risks and ignored them anyway so I don't think it's an education thing, more a rebellion thing - it's very hard being told what you can/can't eat every day and I still struggle with it even now.

People who don't have diabetes think it won't happen to them, those who do have it must already be aware of the dangers but due to the difficulty of managing the disease many don't take the necessary steps, not sure that telling them about amputations/complications will really make that much difference TBH it didn't seem real for me until it happened.

'I'd be happy to (put an apology on his page)' obviously had an undercurrent of 'but I'm not going to'. Very disappointing.

Could i please draw everyone's attention to this thread. Created to try and campaign for MNHQ staff to take some much needed Equality & Diversity training. The behavior displayed by the staff over the last few months is unacceptable for a leading support site.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2771792-How-about-a-campaign-where-the-users-get-MNHQ-staff-to-take-diversity-training

If you agree with the sentiment please do say so on that thread.

This has really been startling. I was on the fence previously about MNHQ's management of disability issues but Justine's comments and subsequent handling of this thread has been an eye-opener. Clearly she doesn't get it and at this point is not concerned.

A business woman not an altruist, then.

Eldest had his clinic appointment yesterday and as I looked round the waiting room at other smaller children wearing their pumps and with their cgm's in their arms I thought about this thread.

Living with any type of chronic health issue is hard. It can be all consuming. We try very hard for it not to be. My child has diabetes but it isn't his defining feature. But equally it is always there.

We don't need scare tactics - our minds do enough scaring of their own. When he was first diagnosed I wasn't overly worried about amputations because I was more worried he would have a really bad hypo in the night and he would be dead when I went in to his room in the morning.

So Justine or anyone on mn who is still following this thread - please do get that apology onto JO's fb page and maybe speak to him about the realities of living with diabetes as a child.

MrsCampbellblack - hope clinic went well. I returned to this thread because I've also been thinking this over and I think #diabetesawarenessmonth would be a really good opportunity for influencers like Justine and JO to engage with the impact of their campaigns and comments on people with forms of diabetes not related to obesity. Justine, if you are on you might like to look out for the #diadigits campaign which is showing what people with T1D go through.

I also wanted to say thank you to people for sharing their stories, especially the experience of teens which is a challenge we have yet to come.

Interestingly I just did some sums, and by my reckoning 7% of obese or overweight people have diabetes and around about 5% of non-obese people. They are only rough figures and obviously obesity is a risk factor for diabetes, but it really does undermine the mantra diabetes=obesity=diabetes.

Thank you OP for this thread. I've learned so much! I think a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing, particularly in the hands of certain people/the media/politicians etc. Well done for using your experience to enlighten and educate.