When the queen of Southern cuisine announced she had diabetes, not only were we not surprised, but we felt in was a foregone conclusion. What is worse is how the healthier than thou felt so comfortable in judging her. Maybe she is not the only one who needs introspection and a change of ways!
The announcement was barely out before the judgments came pouring in! Paula Dean has diabetes and the healthier than thou pontificated that she brought it on herself quicker than you can microwave biscuits and gravy. (Well the frozen kind at least!) After all, we all know how high fat Southern cooking causes diabetes right. As the ever brilliant Paul Campos has pointed out, the proof is not in yet, but I am not going to confuse people with the facts(http://www.thedailybeast.com/...). My primary concern here is how justified we felt finger pointing simply because we have been brainwashed to automatically jump to certain conclusions. Other risk factors simply did not enter our consciousness.
Lets look at what else we should be considering. For instance, Dean was agoraphobic for years. How many people wondered if she ever took antidepressant or related drugs? They too have been associated with an increased risk of diabetes. I don’t know if she did or did not, but why did it not even cross our minds? Then there are antibiotics, pesticides and environmental estrogens. They too may be culprits. What about MSG, HFCS, GMOS, and aspartame! They should be in any food cops line up! Yet fat is the automatic villain, no fair trail needed! There is even a type 3 diabetes that can be caused by electromagnetic energy. But modern medicine is reluctant to even consider it as a suspect yet.
Lets not forget about the packages our food comes in. BPA is getting increased attention for contributing to metabolic disorders! I want to slap silly those stupid soup sippers shouting about their skinny jeans. The commercial promises their soup will make us slinky, but can soup is full of BPA. As well as MSG, other types of sodium, HFC and heaven knows what other chemicals and preservatives. But hey, as long as it is low in calories and fat, it is healthy right!
If low cal is salvation, high cal is damnation. Sort of! If the Dixie diva had been one of those skinny people who can eat old Boss Hogg under the table, we would still be sympathetic. Since she is plump: however, it is as good as gospel she was going to get diabetes. Folk wisdom and junk science hold it is the punishment of the portly. I even knew a situation where this misconception killed a woman. A friend of mine was having trouble breathing and went to the emergency room. She was heavyset so they insisted she was diabetic and gave her insulin. She was not and it killed her. Of course, the cause of death was listed as obesity, not medical malpractice. Or fatal stereotypes! It would be irresponsible at this point not to note that many fat people never develop it and live long health lives with no premature illness. But this is not something epicurean saints want to hear. They want those who enjoy their food to be punished because of all the misery their own dietary restraint brings them, Food abstinence entitles one to walk around with giant carrot sticks up their *ss . Yet, when they are compared to the Puritans, the religious right and the moral majority, they don’t recognize themselves!
It is not my intention to minimize this disease, either publically or personally, but I would be interested to know how serious her diabetes is. Of course medical history is confidential so we probably never will. The reason I ask is because the threshold for diabetes was lowered a few years ago so pharma could sell more pills (http://articles.latimes.com/...). That is not the official version, just the bottom line. Of all the older women I know, more of them than not have been told there are prediabetic, borderline diabetic, or mildly diabetic. Diabetes is big business in the U.S., just look at how many commercials involve some aspect of the condition. The powers that be want us to get it, it fits in perfectly with pharma’s plan to have each one of us dependent on at least one medication for life. And she is endorsing that new pill….
What is most tragic about the Dean scenario to me is not the multitude of risk factors we are ignoring in our single minded obsession with fat and calories. It is not her hawking a new drug. Those things are bad enough, but the real tragedy surrounding the morality we attach to health and fitness is that it allows us to blame the victim for their own ills. I have long argued that weight serves as the all purpose scapegoat for all the ways the corporations kill us. When we get sick, it is only faulty lifestyle that gets the spotlight! Behind the scenes lurk all the ways industry poisons our bodies, poisons our environment and poisons our minds against each other and ourselves. The “no excuses” edict gives the power-elite a built in excuse for business as usual. A very lucrative business at that!