Andrew Bonallack.
We are getting plenty of obesity and diabetes messages almost daily. In fact, we are being hammered with the realities of New Zealand's sugar-rich diet. But it is interesting to notice that one industry is really paying attention to the diabetes crisis we're in at the moment.
It's understandable, but
it's not a good thing. Commercial interests will swiftly step up if the perceived market is there. This has been hit home to me, in a devastating punch, in hearing for the first time a radio advertisement for insulin. Briefly, if our bodies aren't producing insulin, we develop diabetes, and insulin is required regularly, usually injected, for a diabetic's survival. Obesity creates insulin resistance, which can lead to chronic metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes. Since we've already been hit with the message that one in three New Zealanders are overweight, are we in danger of treating this as a societal norm?
In the fictional movie Wall-E, a spaceship of passengers, over time and several generations, devolved to fat because it simply became normal to do so.
Every health message out there screams that it is a long way from normal to be obese, because we become pre-diabetic, or develop diabetes, or just generally die before our time.
But now an advertiser has decided it is the norm to require insulin and we've reached a decent enough commercial threshold of suffering people, ready to purchase our product.
