Is Diabetes an Eating Disorder?

I have been watching the Amazon "Diabetes" bestseller list for the past couple months, tracking how well my book has been doing--which is a lot better than I'd been hoping it would do. Thanks folks!

In the process, I've noticed something very troubling. One out of three books on the Amazon "Diabetes" bestseller list is a book about eating disorders. The people who designed Amazon clearly believe that diabetes is caused by overeating caused by emotional problems. Top books on the "Diabetes" bestseller list include Breaking Free from Emotional Eating (#2 on the Diabetes list last time I checked) or "Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever (#6).

This is not a trivial issue. Many people will check out top selling "Diabetes" books immediately after a diagnosis. Will they buy a book that teaches them what they need to know to prevent complications or will they buy a book that blames their emotional problems for their diabetes and perhaps even urges them to start taking an antidepressant medication to "treat" their emotional problems--despite the fact that many of these antidepressants are very well known to contribute to cause weight gain and increase the insulin resistance that promotes Type 2 diabetes?

My very strong belief is that the hunger and weight gain suffered by people with Diabetes has nothing to do with "emotional eating" and everything to do with what happens when glucose metabolism is disordered. Hunger is usually a symptom that blood sugars are rising too high, which is why so many people are shocked to discover that their "emotional eating" disappears when they cut the sugars and starches out of their diets.

But if a person recently diagnosed with diabetes is not taught that there is an intimate connection between carbohydrates, blood sugar level, and hunger--and most still are not--they won't learn what they need to know to control their eating. If their doctor tells them to lose weight and eat a "healthy diet" they are very likely to fall for the myth that eating fat is dangerous and that only a high carbohydrate, low fat diet is "healthy."

After a week or two of eating whole wheat bread, pasta and bananas--which is what the folder my doctor gave me three years ago told me I should eat as a "healthy diabetic diet"--they will be hungrier than before, no thinner, and convinced that their "emotional eating" is impossible to control. The next step after this is hopelessness, quitting, and a life shortened by the inevitable diabetic complications caused by high blood sugars.

This is so unnecessary!

Beyond that, there is another huge problem with treating diabetes as an eating disorder. If you believe that diabetes is an eating disorder, you undoubtedly also believe that people with diabetes are to BLAME for their diabetes: that they have caused their diabetes through reckless eating.

This belief, which is not backed up by any science, is continually hammered home by the media. It causes shame in people with diabetes who often are obese because of the underlying condition causing their diabetes, rather than diabetic because of their obesity. This shame gets in the way of doing what needs to be done to achieve normal health.

If you still believe that people with diabetes cause their diabetes through their eating patterns, please read this summary of what a lot of high quality research has found about the true causes of diabetes:

You Did Not Eat Your Way To Diabetes.

After you have read it, consider emailing Amazon and asking them to remove books about eating disorders from their "Diabetes" bestseller list. Point out that there are NO books about diabetes on Amazon's "Eating Disorder" bestseller list, though undiagnosed diabetes is a major cause of the raging hunger that leads to the uncontrolled eating that is now diagnosed as "eating disorder" and attributed to emotional rather than physiological causes.

By putting these eating disorder books on their Diabetes list Amazon is making a medical judgment about diabetes--that it is caused by emotional problems--a diagnosis that is not supported by science. To do this is as valid--and as offensive--as putting books about demon possession in the bestseller list for mental illness.

To complain to Amazon use this link: (You will have to sign in.)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/features-and-services.html

I have already written to them and got a personal response, but no action. Perhaps if Amazon hears from a couple hundred people they'll reconsider this policy. It is hurting people, especially those newly diagnosed, by giving them the false message that diabetes is caused by untreated mental illness.