Begin on the sixth floor, third room from the end, swathed in fluorescence: a 60-year-old woman was having two toes sawed off.” So opened the New York Times’ four-part series in early January, “Bad Blood,” about the Type 2 diabetes epidemic in New York City. Type 2 diabetes is caused by excess weight, lack of exercise and poor diet, and… return to article
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Reader Comments (14)Page 1 of 1 pagesType 2 diabetes is caused by excess weight, lack of exercise and poor diet, and is directly related to poverty.
We as a society need to enforce exercise on poor people, especially people of color (as opposed to clear people, i suppose). This can be accomplished by taxing them sufficiently so that they cannot afford to eat fast food, and then using the money collected to enrole them in gyms (after all, it is expensive to exercise).
Oh, maybe the real solution is to tax TVs - the number of hours spent in front of them is directly related to obesity.
Or maybe they could stop stuffing their faces with too much food and take a walk? You know, take just a tad of personnal responsibilty for their own lives, sorta like the rest of us. Or is that a racist/classist idea?
Is this article a parody or is it really meant to be “real”? How silly. . .
Posted by wolf on Jan 24, 2006 at 4:44 PM This is no joke ... as usual, Democrats & Liberals want to BLAME someone for everything. It’s always someone elses fault.
There is no doubt that those in poverty get Type 2 diabetes more, just like those in poverty spend more on lottery tickets and smoke more.
Money is not the problem, the problem is that they are STUPID. Did you know that those below the poverty line who play the lottery on a regular basis spend $170 per month on the lottery ... that’s $2,000 a year. And those with college degrees that play the lottery on a regular basis spend $500 a year. College grad spends $500/yr and someone on welfare spends $2,000/yr on the lottery.
GO FIGURE ...
Maybe they should read, or maybe watch TV .. and they might learn something.
You have to hand it to the liberals and public schools. Libs have done a great job educating our kids. Liberals control our public school system, it’s the biggest liberal union in America and this country is just full of STUPID PEOPLE.
What the Gov’t should do is this ... everyone on welfare should have to take a few classes on the hazzards of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and obesity.
Everyone on welfare should be tested for drugs, alcohol and tobacco and if they test positive they get a warning. If they test positive a 2nd time, then some of their money gets cuts. And #3, they go to jail.
And, they if they are fat, they get weighed every month. If they don’t lose weight then same rules apply above.
The jails would be special jails, strict diet, no candy, no chips, no sitting around all day. They would be forced to exercise and when they lose a certain amount of weight, then they get out of jail.
Posted by tina1 on Jan 25, 2006 at 12:57 AM It looks like someone is a closet liberal yearning for a nanny state.
Posted by wileywitch on Jan 25, 2006 at 2:27 AM Tsk, tsk, tsk tina1. So, the fact that public schools do not sufficently indoctrinate America’s youth with conservative “values” they are liberal centers? Care to provide any proof of that wild accusation?
Ever stop to consider that walking is not a viable option when one lives in a poor urban neighborhood that suffers from pollution and crime? So the fact that corporate food producers have extensive inroads into the public school system and spend BILLIONS on direct child advertising each year has no impaCt on personal choice? Don’t you think that food producers would have stopped spending all that money on advertising if they did not deem it effective?
Conservatives deny the existence of social influences on individual decisions, which is why they cannot seem to think that fast-food companies bear any responsibility for their products.
Posted by Liberal on Jan 25, 2006 at 11:44 AM Tweety has a point. It’s perverted, as usual, but it’s still a point. The Republican response to their altruistic abolition of ADC and Social Security is to construct an extensive system of prisons. It’s called “compassionate conservatism” and its proponents hope to replace the urban slums with a more pastoral congregation of rural “communities” for the indigent and their dissident colleagues. It’s called “The American Gulag”.
Conservatism is a social disease.
Posted by Major Major on Jan 25, 2006 at 4:38 PM I love the conceit that the teachers’ unions run the schools.
Conservatism is dead. The corpse has been taken over by Know-Nothing Zombies.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 25, 2006 at 6:35 PM True Believers, Lumens. I haven’t looked up Bolivar yet, but I have been reading some interesting things about cults that I believe shed light on KTPS syndrome.
So much to read. So little time.
Posted by wileywitch on Jan 25, 2006 at 9:47 PM Perhaps, like the results of a recent study regarding lung cancer (which found that there is a higher incidence of lung cancer in blacks than other races), likelihood of becoming diabetic is greatly related to genetics. This possibility needs to be explored more before we can declare a political conspiracy related to diabetes.
Also, I believe the only way insurance companies could be profiting from radical surgeries performed on the poverty-stricken with diabetes is if those individuals have insurance --most do not. I don’t get that correlation in the article.
Finally, does McDonalds take food stamps?
Posted by miatrans on Jan 26, 2006 at 4:08 PM miatrans, there are two types of diabetes. One is genetically acquired from birth and the other is acquired in the course of one’s life. The people mentioned in this article have type 2 diabetes, which is acquired through poor appetite, lack of exercise, etc. While it is true that someone may have a higher risk of getting type 2 diabetes, environmental factors and appetite are ultimately responsible.
With respect to food stamps and McDonald’s: have you ever heard of their dollar menu? I am sure that is quite appealing to poor people.
Posted by Liberal on Jan 26, 2006 at 4:12 PM Schools clearly shouldn’t be installing coke and candy machines; I mean really - the government making money off of selling bad food to people under 18? Tipping the balance of food available in schools towards the healthier side is a good start to solving this problem.
Education - making sure kids, and their parents, know that they’re likely to suffer greatly from eating poorly - is another part. Unfortunately, marketing and advertising are more prevalent than education these days…
Posted by piou on Jan 26, 2006 at 8:03 PM Actually, it’s funny to see that some social service agencies offer McDonald’s coupons to the hungry while their food stamp eligibility is being determined.
I did find out this random fact on a google search of:
‘Does McDonalds accept food stamps?’
I’m sure Denver is not the only city thast does this
I was curious to see McDonald’s they were actually successful in overcoming the negative press that was generated when they DID try to incorporate food stamp ‘dollars’ into their compensation scheme some 10 -15 years ago.
Anyway, I would read some of those sites just to get the insight that you can be employed at McDonald’s and still need to supplement your income with Food Stamps ( who knew it wasn’t an either/or proposition?)
As for how poverty contributes to the general ill health of people, and how the social and economic problems that are generated from this condition affect everything we do, say and think?
It’d probably take more reading than a google search
Posted by minerva on Jan 26, 2006 at 8:09 PM I’m reading more google entries regarding McDonalds and food stamps, and it’s interesting to see how many different emotions and opinions are ascribed to this association ...
Some are ‘ too proud for food stamps’, and would rather work at McDonald’s.
Some are angry that Mc Donald’s accepts food stamps ...they even get upset that people can use food stamps to buy “Froot Loops” and “Twinkies”
Some tell you where you can collect the toys you missed out on that week you got sick and couldn’t get your ‘Happy Meal’.
Next I’m going to google
‘Fat diabetic amputee entertainment’,
because I saw a guy get his foot removed on TLC about 3 weeks ago because he was diabetic, and didn’t have health insurance, so when he showed up at the ER , his foot wound had become gangrenous and they had to amputate
and now I see this article at In These Times
I’m predicting that the next feel good Hollywood movie of the season will be the story of a plucky diabetic who defeats all odds, hIs own pancreas, and a diabolical corporation to become a successful singer , songwriter, and recovering Big Mac addict
Posted by minerva on Jan 26, 2006 at 8:36 PM One thing not mentioned here---has anyone ever noticed how dieticians are generally in lockstep with the latest food fads? It appears that they are trained shills. Thirty years ago it was “common knowledge” and accepted as gospel that we should eat meat at every meal and that the best meat is marbled with fat.
Now it’s difficult to find whole milk products because they are just shy of being heretical. Ten years of “low fat” tyranny and sugar substitutes and America is still fat.
Most Americans don’t have the education and time to seriously study and experiment with diets. And most Americans are taught to believe that what is most appropriate is a dietary canon with fixed amounts of food or number of calories, regardless of individual lifestyles and fluxuating dietary and caloric needs.
In other words, Americans are miseducated.
Posted by wileywitch on Jan 30, 2006 at 4:19 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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