Salad on the menu in bid to beat disease

Diabetes sufferer Jo Kupa is changing her lifestyle with the help of a Middlemore Hospital programme. Picture / Richard Robinson

Jo Kupa has given up her beloved boil-ups in a late bid to rein in her diabetes.

Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1990 and now aged 62, the South Auckland grandmother has to inject insulin four times a day. That's on top of pills for diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure.

She has spoken out for World Diabetes Day today to urge others with diabetes to eat healthily and exercise regularly.

"I ignored my diabetes. I just ate what I wanted to, thinking my pills are going to keep my diabetes away.

"They didn't. I just got worse."

But this year she has joined a weekly Middlemore Hospital diabetes programme that is helping her to change her lifestyle.

Gone are the boil-ups of fatty brisket or pork bones. Now she eats salads with chicken or ham and wholemeal bread.

When she was feeling low, "I would go to the cupboard and eat the first thing I see, mostly chocolates".

"After I was on this programme I started walking and trying to stay away from foods that I'm not meant to eat."

She also uses a bouncer (mini-tramp) at home.

Weighing about 89kg, Ms Kupa has lost half a kilo since joining the programme and hopes to lose more.

She said 21-year-old son Freeman Kupa was a "health freak" and ate properly, but her other son, Isaac Hurst, 45, had been a big eater.

"I told him if he binges on food and eats the wrong things that he would end up being like me with diabetes."

He had switched to healthier eating habits, reducing his weight to 90kg from 110kg.

Counties Manukau District Health Board, which runs Middlemore, is spending $10 million on its five-year Let's Beat Diabetes project, a range of community schemes, including school programmes, and working with food manufacturers to produce healthier foods.