Tell it to The Packer | Letter to the Editor
Bill Hillman, general manager
The H.T. Hackney Co.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tom Karst’s column “Confronting the obesity contentment malady” is a good piece, except for one point.
Diabetes is a real problem, as you said, for children and adults. Most diabetes can be tied to obesity — Type 2 diabetes. There are a number of people who have Type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease.
Type 1 diabetics have a genetic predisposition to the disease. The children and adults affected by Type 1 did not sign up for it and it’s a life sentence.
Because of the epidemic in obesity there are countless articles associating obesity with diabetes.
Many articles like yours do not distinguish between Type 1 or 2. This has created a problem for a lot of Type 1 diabetics who are stigmatized by the assumption many make that they brought this disease upon themselves.
My son has come from school or sports with hurt feelings on many occasions where well-meaning parents, teachers and others have made insensitive comments about how he brought this on himself by eating junk food.
He is very trim, fit and athletic but he still receives these comments.
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