I’m currently getting my Master’s in Health and Exercise Science at Wake Forest University and I got my Bachelor’s in Exercise Science as well. I’ve spent the last 5.5 years diving into what health means and what we can do to reduce our risk of disease by moving our bodies and adjusting what we put into our bodies.
One thing I’ve realized more recently is how blessed I’ve been by my education and exposure to information about health growing up. I used to think that everyone had the same knowledge about their health leading up to college. Everyone knew we should be taking in around 2,000 calories a day, we should exercise regularly, sugar isn’t great, and mental health is just as important. But boy was I wrong.
It’s actually shocking how little our society knows about health. About what different diseases actually are, what risk factors are, what leads to having risk factors, and etc. We, as a society, really don’t know a whole lot about what we’re doing to our bodies… until it happens.
I didn’t know what type 1 diabetes was until I got it. I asked if I could eat a baked potato right before going to the hospital because I was scared the doctor there would tell me I could never eat carbs again. I knew general health guidelines in the sense of not eating a lot of sugar or friend foods, getting good exercise, and you’d be good. It was after my diagnosis, when I don’t look or act the part of “diabetes,” that I realized health is so much more complex than we give it credit. I started to try to figure out why I got diabetes, which made me figure out what causes type 2 diabetes, and so on.
I come from the perspective now of encouraging health education more widely, but I also recognize that unfortunately, we aren’t there. We are focused on medications that put a band-aid on a risk factor or a disease rather than actually doing something about it before it’s a problem. I also know I can’t be made or frustrated with my participants who don’t know any better. It’s not their fault that they don’t know. But it is our fault as a society that we’ve come to this point.
I realize that this is a weird post coming from someone who could never have prevented my disease and can’t do anything to cure it now. However, type 1 diabetes has made me dive deeper into the health and medical field and how we handle disease.
From someone who can’t so anything about my life-threatening disease, please do everything you can to educate yourself and your loved ones about what you can do to help prevent the diseases that you can.
HP