The diabetes crises is the result of failure to be honest about obesity
Today, 1 in 3 American adults are already prediabetic There is no escaping the fact that type-2 diabetes is a severe problem in America. The data now shows that more than 42 percent of U.S. adults today are struggling with obesity, which is up from more than 14 percent in 1975. Ten percent of U.S. adults are now considered extremely obese.
And the big secret is that obesity and type-2 diabetes is preventable and reversable.
Thirty years ago, I was saying in my health and fitness lectures that the dumpling decade was coming for children in America, meaning that we were soon going to face an epidemic of obese children in our society.
Two things have been unexpected and agonizing to watch develop over the years on this issue.
The degree to which so many people seem to have just accepted the crazy notion that it is OK, from a health standpoint, to be overweight. No big deal! Have you watched any TV commercials lately? Virtually everyone is fat. How bad has it become? Today, if you are critical of anyone being overweight you are accused of “fat shaming.”
During the incredible rise in obesity leading to a meteoric rise in type-2 diabetes, there has been extraordinarily little talk about preventing or treating diabetes with diet and exercise.
Recently the National Clinical Care Commission published its report with government recommendations to combat diabetes. They began by saying that historically diabetes prevention and treatment was all about finding a medical treatment. They admitted that truly little attention had been given to the idea that social and environmental conditions might actually contribute to diabetes. In other words, who would have thought that there might be a correlation to onset diabetes, nutrition, and exercise.
That is the part that drives me crazy. Every medical condition viewed through the lens of the doctor or scientist is primarily assumed to be something absent of cause and effect based on behavior and considered best treated with medication.
