I’m all for education and I have to admit that one would think that the more days having to do with diabetes, the more education there is about the disease…..right? Well maybe not.
Diabetes Awareness Day, Diabetes Awareness Month, T1 Diabetes Awareness Day, Diabetes Blogger Day, Diabetes Alert Day, Diabetes Advocacy Day and actually the list goes on and on. I was speaking to a reporter friend of mine and she told me that she gets more press releases about the different ‘diabetes days’ than any other disease state.
I asked her if that was bad? And she said that it is a difficult position to be in as it means she has to choose which ‘diabetes day’ is not only important but which one would be important to her readers. She said it is really way too much.
As I spoke to some of the many people I know who are involved in the diabetes community a common thread-of-an-answer came back to me. Many people in the diabetes community have a cause or aspect that they feel is important and they think it just as important to let people know about that aspect.
But is that okay to be so diabetes-specific rather than seeking the bigger solution of educating the population as a whole with one centralized messaging?
As I stated, one would think that the more opportunity to get the word out there the better but my reporter friend had this to say about that (paraphrased): Ever hear the old story about a kid talking to his mother about mother’s day and the child asks “when is kid’s day?” to which the mother responds ‘every day is kids day’? Everyday at a newspaper cannot be given to diabetes awareness, or at least the amount of days we are asked to publish something, and with so many choices about diabetes–there can be, and is, no unity in the messaging that diabetes advocates crave.
Wow. This was an eye opener for me. So I present it to you the diabetes community…..what do you think?
I’m a diabetesdad.