I emerge from an eventful half-year – new job, new baby, nay — LIFE, all to write more about diabetes and Nick Jonas?  YES.

Both these things happened last week:

What have I tagged in Shazam to deserve this notification?

Greg Glassman, CEO of CrossFit, you are a ignorant and heartless bigot.

No matter how many medical facts you want to spew, there are people behind these diseases, and a stupid tweet like this does not incite “discussion”, raise “awareness”, or save lives.  (Truthfully, it doesn’t make me want to do CrossFit either, so it really fails as a marketing ploy as well.)

Talking Point: If you’re fat, you’re gonna get diabetes.  That is, if you didn’t already have it because of your fat laziness.

There are people who are thin and diabetic.  There are people who are obese and not diabetic.  T2D is simply insulin-resistance or your body just not producing enough insulin.  Lifestyle factors are part of it, but if you are an overweight person with low activity, you don’t necessarily catch diabetes.  You might be facing death for other reasons unrelated to diabetes though, so cut that out, if you can.

Talking Point: Excess sugar causes Type II diabetes.

It is among the causes of Type II diabetes.  But here’s the thing.  What is “excess” sugar?    The problem with T2D is that you don’t know what’s excess until you totally overdo it and your insulin says, “uh-uh, not dealing with that”.  Until I looked at my diet as a whole, it was really hard to grasp what “excess” sugar was, as I was not regularly downing sugary sodas, donuts, or ice cream (until after baby, that is.  Diabetes vacation!  Working on that.)

It took counting macros for me to realize where the sources of sugar were, and how deeply I had to cut them down to maintain control on my numbers.  And yet, plenty of other people could eat my daily intake and not be diabetic.  Huh.  Lucky them.

Talking Point:  Genetics.  Your momma’s so fat…

What’d you say about my momma??  Yeah, she has T2D too.  So does my dad.  Lucky me.  It means that with work, I can control my T2D but all the people who say “reverse” and “avoid”…I’ll have to manage it forever.  So yeah, maybe if CrossFit wanted to give a diabetic discount, the discourse from Greg Glassman would be great, but that’s not what he’s proposing, so…

Back to Greg Glassman.

Yes.  So per the previous talking points, ignorance.  Willful ignorance.  Fight ignorance by educating yourself – if you want to know more, here are more mythbusters from the American Diabetic Association.

This brings us to the first thing that happened.  I’m sorry for insulting you on my Facebook feed, Nick Jonas.  Nick Jonas has so wonderfully stepped up for T1 diabetics and called out Glassman. Of course, I still have issues with T1s who are all like, nah, I’m not fat like those T2s, but for the most part, go diabetic solidarity.  (But seriously, Nick Jonas, who is your lyricist??  Get a new one.)

ALSO – pour a glass for “dead homies?”  I can’t EVEN at this moment with the privilege and cultural appropriation and INAPPROPRIATENESS of that statement in this world that we’re living in right now.  I hope to tackle that in much smaller chunks, over time, as the red subsides from my vision and I can see the keyboard to articulate things clearly.

And there’s the heartlessness.  I previously posted about Type 2 diabetes being treated and prevented with two luxuries in our modern world:  time and money.  Not opening a Coke doesn’t address either of these luxuries that many people in our country do not have.  And neither do many of the causes that your CrossFit franchises have supported – cancer, education in Kenya, veterans, firefighters.  All of these are noble causes, but not helping diabetics.  CrossFit itself doesn’t really help diabetics – gym memberships are $200/month in my neighborhood.  No diabetic discount.

And the bigot.  Oh, the bigotry.  I didn’t even want to link the initial tweet, but just go to CrossFit’s Twitter to see how much the organization (and I don’t care who’s handling that account, they speak for CrossFit) has doubled down on the perpetuation of their “correctness”.  Ugh, no one likes that guy who has to be right all the time, even when they’re wrong.

There are many things that have happened in this half-year that I want to write about – education, racism, violence and hatred, and the inspiration of my everyday work.  I chose this topic because I have a fairly concise thought about it, and it comes down to this:

Shame for shame’s sake is not an effective motivator.  It is only effective if it forces people to be accountable to themselves and others.  Putting a general “shaming” statement out and then doubling-down and calling it “saving some of the 1/3 of Americans who will get T2 diabetes” is just narrow-minded, ignorant, and UNHELPFUL.  

Much like the theme of my blog, if there’s nothing helpful to say, say nothing at all.