Jan 09 2009
Posted by fifi under Uncategorized
A letter from Marisa.
the following is a letter from My daughter Marisa please read and act if you feel you can.
Cameron,Peter and Jonathan
Cameron is the boy to the left of the picture.
Hi Folks
I wonder if you would take a look at this petition and consider signing it. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/change4life/?signed=dcbd58b.3cc02d
The subject is the new Change4life campaign which is all over the TV and any advertising space you choose to look at. I belong to a large email support group for mothers of children with Type 1 diabetes. Once again, in the latest campaign to scare the public into adopting a more healthy lifestyle, much of the promotional material states that if you eat junk and don’t exercise you will develop ‘diabetes’. Yet again, no attempt has been made to differentiate between the two types of diabetes. As a direct consequence of this, our children are suffering in the playground. They are being taunted about being fat and are being accused of having brought their condition upon themselves by ‘eating too many sweets’. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition which occurs when the immune system attacks part of the body - in this case the beta cells in the pancreas. It is related to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Addison’s disease, Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism and lupus to name a few. It cannot be prevented or cured and most certainly is not brought about by eating junk food and not exercising.
Another consequence of this badly worded and ill thought out campaign is that many of us who have striven to protect our children from some of the less pleasant facts and figures are now being questioned by our sons and daughters about what exactly diabetes is going to do to their long-term health prospects and their life expectancy. One six-year-old in our support group was told by another child in the playground that she will die young. Other children are now seeking reassurance that they didn’t do anything wrong and that their condition isn’t their fault.
Our children have enough to put up with just to survive. Cameron has a minimum of five injections and eight blood tests daily. On top of that he regularly endures the unpleasant feelings of low and high blood sugars. His sleep (and mine) is regularly broken to be checked and often fed at 3am if his glucose levels are low. (Most of us who have lived with diabetes for any length of time know of at least one child who has died from ‘dead in bed syndrome’ - which is peculiar to type 1 diabetes.) He can’t just go to the cupboard and eat a chocolate bar - he has to check his blood glucose level first, weigh the chocolate, work out the carb content, do a mathematic calculation about how much insulin he needs to cover it, inject the insulin, wait ten minutes, and then finally eat the chocolate. Every item of food has to be treated in the same way. Without insulin his life expectancy could be counted in days. He doesn’t need a government backed campaign to make his life any harder.
Not only is this damaging to the wellbeing of 20 000 children in the UK with type 1 diabetes as well as countless adults with the condition - it is also grossly insulting to the large number of non-obese type 2s. We have finally had assurance today from the Department of Health that all future Change4life materials will differentiate between the two types. We, however, want this damaging advert pulled and reworded.
I could go on - but you have done well to read to this point. Please feel free to send this on to anyone you think may be interested.
Thanks
Marisa