Quick hit: “Diabetes is hilarious*”

Another excellent post from Michelle at The Fat Nutritionist, which was just too relevant to the last one here not to boost:

Diabetes is hilarious*

 

That would be Type 2 specifically, though the people taking cheap shots rarely differentiate (or maybe even know there is a difference).

It’s hard to pick out a quote, because the whole thing is so spot-on, but:

Let’s break this trend down to essentials, to get a better grip on what makes things funny:

1. Mostly fat people get diabetes (also unwhite people and poor people and old people)
2. Classy people know that food is unhealthy (refined carbs!!)
3. Only gross people (fat, unwhite, poor, old people) eat food
4. Gross people are not classy (or healthy)
5. Diabetes is nature’s punishment for being gross
   1. (And un-classy)

Put it all together and you get devastating wit.

We all know that diabetes (type 2, the yucky kind) is the world’s premier disease caused by being gross. It is also a hilarious indictment of your worthlessness as a human being.

Also, from the disclaimer section which really would not be necessary if so many people were not chock full o’ hateful ideas:

I also do not think it is coincidence that a disease highly associated with marginalized populations has suddenly become a bastion of trendy humour. Because who’s going to argue?

Erm, yeah.

There is also some excellent discussion in comments about the classism that too often gets wrapped around paleo and other lower-carb ways of eating–which, besides the disordered eating “yay! purposeful weight loss!!!” triggers, is frankly another thing that has slowed me down in shifting to ways of eating that really are easier on my glucose levels.

I guess the too-frequent racist ideas are kinda implied there, too. “New World” crops seem to get disproportionately singled out as unfit for Real Human consumption, other than in the “gluten is poison” meme. (And I have celiac.) Though it’s often hard to separate the two things, especially where, say, beans and cornbread are involved. Not to mention the classic schoolbook “trashy people giving themselves pellagra by eating corn at all” meme! I also must mention the earlier purposeful attempts at “civilizing” people back home by trying to get them to use refined wheat flour, and my Papaw’s having been ashamed to take cornbread to school. See also people trying to scapegoat frybread–which is less of a thing where I’m from, without the reservation history–some of it from internalized crap*.

Also throwing in another link to You Did NOT Eat Your Way to Diabetes. The REAL Causes.–for more actual truth.

It may be a good thing that hateful people who want to parrot this rubbish don’t tend to pay much attention to actual research, or we’d be seeing more disablist BS thrown into the oh-so-droll humor. Because tacky crazy people are also so hilarious.  I’ve been a bit surprised at the general lack of it, anyway. 😐

_____________

*

Secola believes that Harjo has turned frybread into a scapegoat for the larger problems afflicting reservations, such as the lack of healthful food, nutritional education and good access to health care. He also says it is unrealistic to eradicate a food that holds so much cultural power for Native Americans. The theme of his song “Frybread” is perseverance against oppression. The lyrics describe how the culinary police—Colonel Sanders, Captain Crunch, and Major Rip-Off—try to steal frybread from the people. “But they couldn’t keep the people down,” Secola sings, “because born to the people was a Frybread Messiah, who said ‘You can’t do much with sugar, flour, lard and salt. But you can add one fundamental ingredient: love.'” “Frybread” the song, like frybread the food, is about making something out of nothing.

The details may be different, but sounds all too familiar. See also ‘As Tonia Moxley half-jokingly put it, “In the Southern Appalachians, a sack of corn meal and a sack of pinto beans have sometimes been all we possess”.’ That maybe went double for Native people.