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'Show don't tell'

Nicole Fallert   Paste BN

It's well documented that Type 2 diabetes diagnoses are widespread in the U.S. The chronic illness affects more than 1 in 10 Americans − but rates continue to rise despite well-known treatments and prevention steps. Though there's robust data that explains the prevalence of the disease, patients' experiences can't be described with only numbers.

To capture the nuance of living with Type 2 diabetes, Paste BN's health team traveled across the country this year. Our reporters spoke with patients, clinicians and researchers and found people with diabetes often must fend for themselves against systemic barriers and a difficult disease.

👋 Nicole Fallert here, and welcome to Your Week, our newsletter exclusively for Paste BN subscribers (that's you!). This week, we talk with Paste BN health correspondent Karen Weintraub about the new five-part series that explores why America hasn't solved its long struggle with Type 2 diabetes. 

But first, don't miss these smart stories made possible by your Paste BN subscription:

'Not victims, but people making a difference'

When Karen Weintraub traveled to Holmes County, Mississippi, in May, she didn't expect a mystery. The area is dominated by commercial farmland, but why did she have to drive more than 20 miles to find fresh vegetables?

"The options for food were really limited," Weintraub says. So were areas for exercise: Agricultural trucks "barreled" down roads with no sidewalks, which made it impossible to walk or run. A watering hole felt promising until she discovered it was swarming with alligators.

It's widely known that medical experts suggest eating right and exercising to support a healthy lifestyle and stave off diseases like Type 2 diabetes. But what does life look like when there are no options to access healthy food and places to exercise?

It's easy to blame people for being unhealthy and getting sick with Type 2, Weintraub says, until we complicate our assumptions.

What struck her about Holmes County was the complex web of medical, food and social systems preventing patients from controlling their illness or getting in the way of diagnosis in the first place.

"I didn't just want to find people who were victims of the system," she says. Looking from farm fields to pulpits, medical clinics, radio booths and the auditorium of a museum honoring blues great B.B. King, she found that residents are doing what they can to improve the health of their neighbors and themselves. "I found a group of people working to help neighbors to combat local problems."

Type 2 isn't something that's cured and patients move on from. It involves constant interaction with medical professionals across cardiology to endocrinology to optometry in addition to personal work on diet and exercise.

The series exposed that this coordination is a "weak point" in the American medical system, Weintraub says: "We tend to dismiss people with chronic illness so readily it can be so scary."

So how do we move forward? Weintraub suggests we follow an old journalistic rule: "Show, don't tell," and maybe the truth of living with Type 2 diabetes will be better known.

Read more from Paste BN's exclusive series on Type 2 diabetes:

Thank you

The health team's series is an important reminder to think twice before making assumptions about people living with chronic illness. This is why it's so important for stories like these to be written, and thank you for your support of this mission.

Best wishes, 

Nicole Fallert

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