Well intentioned “raising-awareness-about-the-dangers-of-diabetes” campaigns are no substitute for accessible preventive health care. Empowering people to become the protagonist of their diabetes care, to set their own goals, and to demand fair and competent treatment from their health providers cannot change a health care system that at best is ill-equiped to deal with chronic disease, and that at worst leaves vast sectors of the population unprotected, precisely those who are vulnerable because they lack the social capital to make the “right choices” to prevent the disease in the first place.
Claudia Chaufan
Sugar Blues: A Social Anatomy of the Diabetes Epidemic in the United States
(from my new favorite book: Unhealthy Health Policy)
