THE BLEAK, ominous and pessimistic language and imagery around diabetes and people living with the condition affects whether or not people choose to get tested, and a global movement that South Africa has joined hopes to change this.
Local non-profit organisation Sweetlife Diabetes Community joined the global #LanguageMatters movement, calling for a “new language for diabetes”.
A simple example of this would be replacing the term diabetic, sufferer, patient, or consumer with person, person with diabetes, or person living with diabetes and disease. Sweetlife co-founder Bridget McNulty was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 15 years ago and had little knowledge of the condition at the time.
“Everything I read said you’re now at greater risk of blindness, amputation, heart disease, kidney failure, and nowhere in anything I read did…