In your best form : a series of broadcast talks for diabetics and their families (recently broadcast in the Home Service programme and published with the permission of the author and other broadcasters.).

Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In your best form : a series of broadcast talks for diabetics and their families (recently broadcast in the Home Service programme and published with the permission of the author and other broadcasters.). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    normal diet (as long as he is careful) without putting weight on again. The second misconception is about the kinds of food that diabetics can eat. There’s a general idea that they can’t eat this, that or the other foods because it’s bad for them. There is really no ' kind of food that’ diabetics can’t. eat. It is all a question of amounts and of knowing the value of the foods in terms of carbohydrates, protein and fat. What really matters is that the diabetic should eat the same, or very nearly the same amount of food each day, and at about the same time each day, in order to balance his dose’ of insulin. There shouldn’t be anything very difficult about that. It’s what most of us do, except, perhaps, for an occasional burst of some kind. It is the carbohydrate that matters most, the protein and fat rather less so. Protein, by the way, is body-building food, and meat and fish are the best examples, though eggs, milk and cheese all contain it. I don’t think I need explain what fat is. It doesn’t matter in what form you take your allowance of carbohydrate for a particular meal, provided you take the right amount. Why then don’t diabetics eat chocolate, sweets, sugar, sweet puddings and so on? The real reason is that these are very concentrated forms of carbo- hydrate. If they took their carbo- hydrate in that form they would only get a very small and unsatisfying amount. For instance a 4-oz. bar of chocolate would probably contain a quarter of the allowance of carbohydrate for the whole day, and you would get awfully hungry if you couldn’t eat enough bread or potatoes to fill you, because you had had some chocolate. Further if the patient did start taking his carbohydrate in this form—chocolate and so on—he would almost certainly be tempted to take much more than he -was allowed, and then trouble would begin. If we leave out the very concentrated foods, there’s really no limit to the variety of food which a diabetic can eat—provided he eats the right amount. It is all a matter of knowing how to vary the diet, and this is part of the education of the diabetic, which as I said is one * of the most important parts of his” treatment. I have brought along a Sister dietitian from a diabetic clinic so that you can see how a diabetic learns to vary his diet. The dietitian turns the figures which the doctor gives her into a diet and explains to the patient how he can vary it to suit his own tastes; how, for instance, he can take caviare or conger eel in place of meat, if he wants to; and how to meet the ‘needs of the way — he lives—how for instance to take his dinner to work in the form of sand- wiches. She is going to talk first to Cedric’s mother. Cedric is 12, and the main difficulty with him has been to get him to eat up all his diet. Why should he ? First, so that he will grow normally, and secondly so that he will get enough food to balance his dose of insulin. People often think being on a diet means only that you mustn’t eat more than it says on the diet sheet, and that it doesn’t matter if you eat less. This is not so. If a diabetic taking insulin” misses a meal or eats much less than ~ his diet sheet states, the level of sugar — in his blood may fall till he gets what we call an insulin reaction, I shall talk about these again. In the meantime, notice it is. just as important that a diabetic should eat his diet, as it is diet. Mrs. Scott: Well, of course, you know all about Cedric’s extra diabetic. rations—extra rations of meat, cheese . and fats. You have to give us his sugar ration, but he should still be getting his sweets. Is he getting his school milk ? Mrs. PARFITT: Oh yes—he gets that. Mrs. Scott: Do you use the list of alternatives to the things on the diet sheet—every diabetic must have that ? Mrs. PARFITT: At first I was always now I have his diet sheet and the list of alternative foods up on the inside of the kitchen cabinet. Mrs. Scott: You know how to use dried egg, scrambled with a little fat instead of bacon? and instead of a milk pudding he can have orange and
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