May 02, 2023
Society effort needed to tackle diabetes
A Māori public health researcher says the government could be doing more to address the growing diabetes problem.
Dr Rawiri Keenan from the University of Waikato’s Medical Research Centre says a recent study which showed up to seven in 10 cases were linked to poor diet didn’t come as a surprise, but the solution will require more than individual action.
He says people are told they should eat better and exercise more, but the choices available to them and the cost of good food, as well as the other pressures on their time and money, doesn’t make it easier to make those better choices.
“It’s not that it’s ‘do this and you don’t get diabetes.’ It’s all the little and, ands but I think that’s the key point of that. We’ve got to get governments and policy people and society as a whole to take this on and stop just saying this is costing us at the hospital end but then pointing the finger and saying ‘you just need to lose weight and you need to eat better,'” Dr Keenan says
He says when he started in medicine two decades ago type 2 diabetes was seen as something of concern for people over 50, but he now sees it in people in their 20s.