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    The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then
    The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then
    The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then
    Ebook204 pages2 hours

    The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then

    By Lisa Sumlin

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    About this ebook

    It’s a MYTH that minorities with Type 2 diabetes must completely cut their favorite cultural foods out of their diet in order to effectively manage their diabetes!

    Having Type 2 diabetes can be hard enough for anyone to manage, but being a cultural minority makes it even harder! African Americans and Latinos live in food-focused cultures: food plays a central role in their identity and the ways in which they live their lives. However, it is possible for minorities to effectively manage diabetes in the midst of their food-focused cultures without completely cutting out the collard greens and corn tamales! Through the pages of this book, you will learn that even with diabetes, you can have your favorite cultural foods... and eat them, too!

    Dr. Lisa Sumlin combines years of research, work in the community among minority women with diabetes, and experience as a university professor skilled in the instruction of diabetes management to unlock the secrets to effective diabetes management for cultural minorities. By providing practical tips, strategies and recommendations, Dr. Sumlin shows how it is possible for minority women with diabetes to navigate their food-focused lives and how they, as the gatekeepers of health for their families, can introduce healthier food habits that will reduce the risk of diabetes among their loved ones for generations to come.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLisa Sumlin
    Release dateJun 29, 2018
    ISBN9780999463819
    The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then

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      Book preview

      The Struggle Is Real! Diabetes Management for Women Who Love Their Cultural Dishes, Enjoy Food-Focused Social Lives, and Appreciate a Good Piece of Fried Chicken Every Now and Then - Lisa Sumlin

      Introduction

      I Love Good Food but

      Hate Having Diabetes.

      Can You Work with That, Dr. Lisa?

      ASK ANYONE YOU MEET about how life is going, and in general, they’ll tell you that despite all that is happening in their lives, life is good! In doing so, they speak the truth: life is indeed good, and there are plenty of things that make it that way. For example, relationships with the people we love, like family and friends, make life good. The fun adventures and new experiences that we have the privilege to enjoy like concerts, Broadway shows, and football games make life good. Having the freedom to go where we want and live how and where we want make life good. Even something as simple as cuddling with our pets or binge watching our favorite television show makes life good. And then there’s food. Food, glorious food!

      Let’s face it: not many things can bring a big smile to our faces and make our hearts leap like food! The smell of cookies baking in the oven or popcorn in the movie theatre. The sound of a thick, buttery steak sizzling on the grill or fried chicken crackling in a cast iron skillet. The sight of a plate with bacon and eggs or a mile-high piece of moist chocolate cake. The feel of a thick, juicy foil-wrapped turkey leg in our hand as we walk around enjoying the sights at a local festival. So much of how we live, what we do, and how we enjoy our daily existence revolves around food. Food contributes to the fun, to the happiness – to the goodness of our lives! What a bummer then, when one day, you go for what you think is going to be a standard medical appointment, only to hear your doctor tell you that your love affair with food has to end because you have diabetes.

      PEOPLE WITH TYPE 2

      DIABETES OFTEN SAY THEY

      DO NOT HAVE ANY SYMPTOMS.

      Diabetes. The dreaded D-word. Now, this came as a bit of a shock, because you knew that you weren’t doing everything right, but you didn’t expect to end up having diabetes of all things. Like, you knew that you weren’t eating enough green veggies, that you probably could have drank more water than soda, that you probably didn’t need to have a dessert with every meal, and that yes, you could have made fewer trips to your favorite fast-food joint for a quick and easy dinner after work. You knew that the most exercise that you engaged in was walking from your car in the parking lot into your office building or shopping market, even though you always looked for the closest spot possible to the door so that you didn’t accidentally overdo it on your cardio that day. In fact, you have no problem admitting that your eating and exercise habits weren’t exactly healthy, but you did not realize that they were as unhealthy as they were and that they were going to have the kind of serious consequences on your life that they do now. You never thought that you’d actually get diabetes. I know. If I’ve heard these stories once, I’ve heard them a thousand times.

      When [the doctor] told me [I had diabetes], I was upset and sad… because I knew I had done it to myself. Believe it or not, I used to be really thin and then I gained a lot of weight. It’s a crazy thing, you know? You don’t realize how you gained weight because your lifestyle has never changed. Nothing had changed… If I look back and try to remember how I gained it, I just don’t see it. I don’t know what happened, or like, when it happened. I know I gained it because the scale says it and I feel it, but I just don’t remember intervals where I stopped and looked at myself… anything like that… it was like I looked at myself one day and said, How did I get here? – Rosa

      As a university professor, researcher, community educator, practitioner, and consultant, I have sat and listened to innumerable stories from my clients about how their diagnosis of diabetes was unexpected. However, their stories never end here. It never fails that these stories are always followed up with stories of another kind – ones of disappointment and frustration. They tend to express disappointment because food has been such a central part of their lives – the part they really enjoy – and because they did not manage their eating and exercise regimens properly, they have brought this condition on themselves. They have no one else to blame, and they know it, so they are disappointed, and sometimes even disgusted with themselves. Then, they shift to stories in which they talk about the hardship of living with diabetes. "You have no idea how hard it is. It’s such a struggle! they explain. You’ll never know how having to cut out all of the foods you love forever takes all of the fun out of life!" they complain. However, they are wrong. I do understand.

      IN ANCIENT TIMES, DOCTORS

      WOULD TEST FOR DIABETES BY

      TASTING URINE TO SEE IF IT WAS SWEET!

      THESE DOCTORS WERE CALLED ‘WATER

      TASTERS.’ OTHER DIAGNOSTIC MEASURES

      INCLUDED CHECKING TO SEE IF URINE

      ATTRACTED ANTS OR FLIES TO ITS SWEETNESS.

      Over the years, I have encountered countless food-loving individuals like these – and like you – who are tasked with managing diabetes in their own lives and/or with helping to support their loved ones with diabetes management. I have heard them. I have collected, examined and analyzed the stories of their struggles. I have conducted research on how to effectively empower them, developed tools and resources that would help them succeed in the struggle, and had these tools and resources tested and validated by healthcare practitioners and industry peers. Most importantly, because of my intimate level of understanding of the people in this population and the struggles they encounter on a daily basis, I have used these tools and resources to help them successfully manage diabetes in their own lives and to support their loved ones who were also managing diabetes. What does all of this mean? It means that I can help you, too!

      Already Feeling Anxious about Your Journey?

      Recruit one of your friends, family members, church members, or co-workers to go through it with you! Better yet, recruit several of these individuals and purchase a copy of this book for each of them so you can make it a book club! In doing so, you can each support one another as you commit to learning and making changes in your food habits that will impact generations to come!

      Although I have worked for many years with the diabetes population in general, my doctoral research, professional practice and educational efforts in the community focus on the unique needs of African American and Latina women as they engage in their own personal battles with diabetes or as they play a caretaking or support role in helping their parents, spouses, children, extended family and friends who battle with the disease. I focus on these particular populations for a few reasons. First, those in African American and Latino populations tend to experience a higher prevalence of diabetes relative to the general population. Second, I target women in these minority groups because women tend to be the caretakers and gatekeepers for health in the household. They tend to be more engaged in grocery shopping and meal preparation¹, so if I can impact the way these women regard and relate to food, I will ultimately affect the food culture of the entire household. Finally, I choose to focus on African American and Latino populations because they tend to be food-centered cultures. As you can probably guess, being a part of a culture that is food-centered and also prone to diabetes is not so good of a combination! Needless to say, because this is true, working in diabetes management with African Americans and Latinos represents quite a challenge. However, it is a challenge that I have chosen to embrace in my professional career and one that I have been successful in teaching people to overcome!

      [When I learned I had diabetes], I think I didn’t fess up to I got diabetes! You know how you just kind of put it in the back of your head. And so, nothing is going wrong with you and nothing is happening to you. And that’s how I was!

      – Dale

      One of the most critical lessons that I have learned from working with minority communities on diabetes management over the years is that their struggles are unique and cannot be lumped in with the rest of mainstream Americans struggling with diabetes. Let’s face it: lots of diabetes management research has been conducted by my professional peers, published and passed on to those who live with diabetes. However, I’m going to go out on a limb to say something that many either do not understand or would not dare to say: diabetes management research is good, but one size does not fit all for the practical application of this research. That is to say, different people within the diabetes population, particularly minorities, require different strategies, tools, tips and methods in order to take what has been learned through research and apply it to their lives.

      Without translating existing diabetes management research recommendations into a culturally-appropriate language that African American and Latinos can understand and offering culturally-sensitive strategies of implementing these recommendations, all of the research in the world will not do these minority populations any good! Simply put, if you’re going to make recommendations to minorities about how to manage diabetes, you must be able to show them how they can put these recommendations into practice in specific ways that take into account the food-centered, food-loving cultures in which they live. This is because these groups are not like every other group. Their ways of celebrating are not like everyone else’s. Their various forms of cultural expression are not like others’. Because of the unique values, norms, customs and traditions of their cultures, they tend to have a different relationship with certain foods that most other people, predominantly non-minority (including many diabetes researchers), do not understand. They do not understand that when an African American or Latino goes to a medical appointment and the doctor tells them that they have to stop eating certain foods, particularly cultural foods that have a significant meaning in their lives, the doctor is telling them that they must cut out an intimate part of who they are! These foods are a part of what defines who they are as individuals, so cutting them out of the diet is simply not that easy! However, I have good news: I understand, and I can help.

      Document Your Struggle in a Diary!

      One of the most effective ways to cope with the various feelings and mental challenges that you encounter on a daily basis as a person with diabetes is to document them in a diary. This allows you to face them head-on and deal with them rather than hiding from them. Commit to journaling your feelings, successes, failures, and struggles for at least 5 minutes at the end of every day. Celebrate your wins, and give yourself grace when you fall short of your goals!

      Listen. I get it: managing diabetes as a cultural minority is hard, and the struggle is real! Despite the difficulties, I have worked with countless minority women just like you, teaching them tools, tips and techniques on how to take medical recommendations for diabetes management, tweak them, and fit them into their food-loving, food-centered lives, so I know that this is a struggle that you can win – without compromising your cultural identity, taking the spontaneity out of life, or ending your affair with the delicious foods you love. I also get that you are tired of hearing – from medical professionals as well as from all of the well-meaning loved ones in your life – about all of the things that you’re not supposed to do and not supposed to eat. Because I recognize this, I’m not here to give you a list of do not eat’s and stay away from’s. I know that if I did, this book, which you started off fully intending to read from cover to cover, would either become a drink coaster or a door stop by the end of the first chapter, if you allowed yourself to continue even reading it that far. Instead, I’m here to empower you with what you can do to effectively manage diabetes in your own life and/or to provide diabetes management support in the lives of your loved ones as a minority woman… and there is a lot that you can do!

      ABOUT ONE THIRD OF ALL

      PEOPLE WITH DIABETES DO NOT

      KNOW THEY HAVE THE DISEASE!

      Although the diabetes management concepts presented in this book are primarily targeted toward African American and Latina women who either have diabetes or who help to care for a loved one who does, they are universal in their application. The recommendations, tools, tips and strategies that I offer can be embraced by anyone of any culture, gender, or age for help with

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