NOTE

I work at Diabetes Australia. It is important for me to highlight this because I am writing about a TV show that has not been especially complimentary to that organisation. That is not why I’m writing though. I’m not here to defend or respond to the claims made about

Diabetes Australia. This post is about the way the story of type 2 diabetes is being told in the series. 

However, I think that it is important to highlight the lens through which I am watching this show and consider that bias. I think it is also important to consider that my position about stigma, blame and shame and type 2 diabetes has been consistent for a long time. 

This post not been reviewed by anyone at Diabetes Australia. As always, my words and thoughts, and mine alone. 

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It will come as no surprise to most people that when Diabetes Australia launched a new position statement about type 2 diabetes remission, there was a section on language when speaking about this aspect of type 2 diabetes management. There is also this point: ‘People who do not achieve or sustain remission should not feel that they have ‘failed’.’ 

Language matters. I wrote about my own concerns about how we talk about type 2 diabetes remission in a post a couple years ago. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be talking about it, or helping people understand what remission is, but I am saying that the way we talk about it must be considered. Because adding more blame and shame to people serves only to further contribute to the burden of living with the condition.

Unfortunately, the same consideration has not been given to a new show on SBS, grandly called ‘Australia’s Health Revolution’. The three-part show is presented by Dr Michael Mosley and exercise physiologist Ray Kelly, with the aim to show that type 2 diabetes remission is achievable with a low-calorie diet. Eight Australians with type 2 diabetes, or pre-diabetes are there as ‘case studies’.

This post is likely to draw criticism from some, and I accept that. But I will point out that it is not actually a commentary on whether remission of type 2 diabetes is achievable or sustainable for people with type 2 diabetes. I am a storyteller and a story listener, and I hear stories from people who say that they have achieved remission and others who haven’t. In the spirit of YDMV, I’m going to say that there is no one size fits all, and that this is a super complex issue. 

This post also isn’t a commentary on the struggles some people with type 2 diabetes face when trying to find a HCP who will support them to aim for remission using a low calorie and/or low carb diet. I think that my position on that is abundantly clear – if your HCP isn’t supporting your management decisions, find a new HCP. 

What this is about is how a TV show being shown at prime time is presenting type 2 diabetes, and what is being missed.

Michael Mosley is a TV doctor from the UK who has written books about low calories diets. I probably should be wary to say anything that isn’t glowing praise for the good doctor, because last time I dared do that on TV I was fat shamed. Of course, I wrote about it. Read it here. I know people who diligently follow his 5:2 or low-calorie eating plans and say it has greatly helped them and is terrific for their health. To those people, I say ‘Fantastic!’. Finding something that works is a challenge, and if you’ve found that and you are enjoying it and it’s sustainable for you, brilliant. Anything that improves someone’s health and makes them feel better should be celebrated!

I have no comment to make about Michael Mosley’s diets or the fact that he is selling something – books and a subscription diet plan. But I do have a lot to say about the way he is presenting type 2 diabetes. He is treating type 2 diabetes like an amusement park ride. He started in the first episode by sharing that he was going to ‘Put his body on the line eating a ‘fairly typical Australian diet’ … of ultra-processed food, to see if it pushes his blood sugar into the diabetes range.’ He then had baseline bloods and other metrics taken. 

The food Michael Mosley claims to be typically Australian bears no resemblance to the foods that I eat, that I grew up eating, that I cook, that any of my friends or family eat. But, unlike Mosely, I’m checking my privilege right here, and acknowledging that living in inner-city Melbourne with the means to buy fresh foods whenever I want or need and having an excellent knowledge of food and health, plus the time to make things from scratch (something I greatly enjoy doing) means that I am in a different situation to many people whose circumstances don’t mirror mine. 

I don’t judge what other people eat, and I don’t apply moral judgements to food. I consider what it costs to put food on the table, and food literacy. Plus, I am learning about how we have simply used the term ‘cultural groups’ to point to higher rates of type 2 diabetes in people of certain backgrounds is a lazy, get-out-of-jail-free card that doesn’t examine important factors such as food availability, poverty, education and history. 

I understand that while for some people, walking to the local market is easy and affordable shopping, others are at the mercy of what is on the shelves of their local supermarket. It is not as simple as saying stop eating processed foods when, for some people, that is all they have access to, or to tell people to cook for themselves where they have never been taught. These systemic considerations have not been addressed so far in the TV show, and without doing so, only half the story is being told. 

And mostly, I understand that there are genetics at play – massively. 

These are not excuses. These are factors that need to be mentioned and considered, because without doing so, we are presenting this as a simple, mindless issue and anyone who doesn’t put their type 2 diabetes into remission has only themselves to blame. 

Mosley ate his ‘typical’ Aussie diet for three or so weeks and when he had those same checks run to compare against his baseline, he found that his weight had gone up, as had his blood pressure, glucose levels, cholesterol etc. 

Now, if you are thinking you have seen all this before and jumped into a time machine and been taken back to 2004, you would be correct. We saw it first in 2004 when Morgan Spurlock entertained us with his documentary, ‘Super Size Me’. And then again in 2015 with Damon Gameau’s film ‘That Sugar Film’. There is nothing new about privileged white men eating the ‘foods of the poor’ and showing that their health has taken a hit. 

Michael Mosley then started eating a low-calorie diet to show just how quickly and simply his weight dropped, and other metrics moved back to within target range. 

Thankfully, alongside Mosley is Ray Kelly, and I am so, so grateful that he is there, because he leaves the sensationalist schtick behind to focus on the people and their stories, working to help them set achievable goals. He replaces Mosley’s melodramatic with compassion, simplicity with conversations about the complexity of diabetes, and privilege and assumptions with a genuine acknowledgement of the challenges – the social, generational, cultural, psychological challenges – faced by the people with diabetes and prediabetes on the show. 

When watching the show last night, my daughter said, ‘Is this like ‘The Biggest Loser’ on SBS?’. I smiled but pointed out that the difference is Ray Kelly. In this show, he is working with Lyn, a woman who is trying to lose weight. Lyn has decided she wants to climb a hill in her area. If it was ‘The Biggest Loser’, they would have tied a truck tire around her waist and made her climb to the top of the hill, with Michelle Bridges screaming at her while she was doing it. But here, Ray marked out the first challenge – a 50 metre there and back walk, to be increased to 75m the next day, knowing every step is one more than the day before. 

The big piece missing for me in this television series the absence of any sort of mental health professional (perhaps this will be included in the final episode?). Diabetes is never just about numbers. It’s never just about what we eat, or the medication we take, and it’s never just about what we weigh.  Addressing behavioural change must be part of this discussion if change is to be sustained. In an interview he did for the show, Mosley says ‘Anxiety also encourages people to eat more’. And yet, at no point has anxiety or any other mental illness and its impact into type 2 diabetes and obesity been discussed. 

Should we be speaking about type 2 diabetes remission? YES! Of course we should, especially as there is a growing body of evidence helping us to understand more and more about it. But we need to be doing it better than we’re seeing here. I don’t know Ray Kelly (expect for a couple of encounters on Twitter), but I feel that his approach is what we need more of. We certainly don’t need sensationalism and blame and shame. And please, we don’t need more stigma.