When people say “prevent diabetes” what do they think they mean? The more I see this phrase, the more I think it is a fatphobic dog whistle about eliminating fat people.

Because they aren’t talking about type 1 diabetes. My understanding is there’s no way to prevent type 1.

We don’t even know why people get type 1. Not for sure.

So when we’re talking about the “morally bad” diabetes, it’s definitely type 2 that people are referring to.

And what causes type 2? They don’t really know either. Not completely. Diabetes is a complicated disease. And if you think you know it’s probably because you’ve consumed a lot of fatphobic propaganda.

But news flash- diabetes is not caused by “being fat”. Or eating whatever foods are the bad ones this year. In fact, historically, diabetes has been correlated to show up more in groups that are marginalized and discriminated against.

Like how people thought that being Jewish was correlated with diabetes. Which is a real thing people thought. Which no one thinks anymore, but I guess everyone forgot about.

There is no separation between vicious judgment/stigmatization and discussions of regular people (who aren’t research scientists) of the causes of type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is used to implement harmful, fatphobic government and corporate interventions against fat people, all carried out in the Most Holy Name of diabetes prevention.

Literally no one gives a flying fuck about thin people with diabetes…

Or how misdiagnosis of type 1 as type 2 can kill — so do the damn actual medical testing and don’t just look at people to diagnose them, terrible fatphobic medical staff!

WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE MEDICAL TESTS IF DOCTORS JUST DECIDE WHAT’S WRONG WITH PEOPLE BY LOOKING AT THEM?

Almost no one who says they care about diabetes actually gives a fuck.

So-called “diabetes prevention” is just a more acceptable way to hate fatties.

Diabetes is horrible. It would be awesome if people would actually care about curing it and not about how to get rid of all the fat people.

Originally published on Twitter and Medium.com