Excuse me for being blunt, but someone
needs to be. When certified diabetes educators with other titles
like registered dietitian, we need always to be concerned about which
conflict of interest we are receiving. Is it Big Food or Big Pharma
that is being promoted? I always take the first title behind the
name as being the one of most concern.
That led to a surprise in this blog on
the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) website. I had
a difficult time swallowing her reasoning for letting a myth take
over her discussion. After her class hears the myth, she concluded
the blog by asking, “So why is it still so difficult to get
patients to “buy in?””
Why she had to ask this, when she
answered her concluding question in the paragraph above it, still
puzzles me. “Most are looking for that “miracle pill” that
helps them lose weight and improve physical abilities while allowing
them to eat as much as they want.” It would seem to me that
she has more educating to do and very unwilling listeners. I have no
sympathy in this case because she allowed a myth to be promoted in a
diabetes class.
Yes, I have had people tell me that
this is the twenty-first century, so there has to be a cure. I try
not to let this go any further and if it does, I say until they can
produce the article or advertisement, it is not part of the
discussion. I have had one person produce the advertisement and with
that, I was able to show the person why and how he had been mislead.
No, he was not happy, but after making him answer questions about the
advertisement, he had a better understanding. After that, he thanked
me for making him decipher the advertisement.
Back to the blog, and why I have a
problem with CDEs. Yes, the author did mention diet and exercise,
but it was more like a mandate than education. Rather than stretch
their brains, many CDE’s resort to mandates and expect people to
follow. This is also a reason for lack of buy-in by patients.
I am surprised that the dogma of
consuming whole grains was not introduced. That is the only positive
I can identify in the blog.
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