Have you experienced or witnessed stigma in diabetes care? The AADE blog recently published an article just on this topic and it's an important one for all educators. People with type 2 diabetes hear too often that they are at fault for the disease; through poor diet choices, sedentary lifestyle, etc. It’s time for diabetes educators to stand up whenever they hear this shame and blame, and disband the ignorance. See below for an excerpt about one educator's recent experience addressing diabetes stigma and her plea for you to speak up anytime you hear it. Click here for the link for the full article.
"Recently, I had the opportunity at my son’s t-ball practice to re-educate someone about type 2 diabetes. I overheard one parent say to another, “My mom’s diabetes is so bad, she takes insulin and she doesn’t listen to the doctor and it’s so infuriating because it’s all her fault.” Whoa – full stop. I counted to 10 in my head (as responsible people do when they are angry), took a very deep breath and said, “You know, your mom may have diabetes for a lot of different reasons, but none of them are her fault. Would you talk to a cancer patient that way?” The parents were puzzled and looked at me sideways. “You wouldn’t say to a cancer patient, ‘gee you totally screwed this up and now you have cancer so that means we’re going to have to resort to chemotherapy.’ Would you?” They agreed that would be a foolish thing to say. "