that | DIABETES SOUTH AFRICA

Who are the food police?

People who feel they have the right to comment on your dietary choices.

As a person living with diabetes, here are steps can you take to stop the food police from ruining your day.

Empathise

One way of coping with the food police is to put yourself in their shoes. Often, they truly are coming from a place of care and concern. Even if their response is inflammatory enough to make you want to pull your (or their) hair out.

Recognise that often, when someone asks, “Are you allowed to eat that?”, the subtext of their question is: “I’m really freaked out by the fact that you have this illness. So, I’m making these comments to help me feel in control”.

Diabetes is tough for us who live with it, but it’s also taxing for our loved ones. Recognise that food policing might simply be a family member’s coping strategy. Once you’ve made peace with this idea, you’ll be better placed to educate and set boundaries to stop food policing for good.

Educate

Often, the food police lack an understanding of what people with diabetes can and can’t eat. For example, you may be shocked to learn how many people think that managing diabetes is simply about avoiding sugar. If only it were that simple!

If you’re feeling in a good enough mood, you can use your loved one’s display of ignorance as an opportunity to help them learn more about a) what managing diabetes is really about; and b) what sort of responses are and aren’t helpful.

Ultimately, however, the food police often leave us feeling angry and hurt; and we’re usually not in the right sort of space to educate. This is perfectly okay. In such situations, it’s important to own your anger so that you can set healthy boundaries.

Own your anger

Many of my clients are surprised when I tell them that anger is a good thing. Specifically, anger is a healthy indicator that something is off in a relationship. It’s a catalyst for important interpersonal change. Your anger lets you know that a loved one has overstepped a boundary.

If you’re able to channel your anger into a healthy response (discussed below), you’ll be using your emotion to help you establish appropriate boundaries.

To do this, it’s important to own your anger: acknowledge and accept its presence. Allow yourself to feel it; but give yourself some time to calm down before you act on what you’re feeling!

Set boundaries

Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to set healthy boundaries. It’s possible to do this in a kind way, but you need to be firm and assertive at the same time.

This is where ‘owning your anger’ comes into play. Connect with whatever the food police make you feel – anger, sadness or frustration. Tell them frankly what you feel when they speak to you in this way. This will help them to understand that what they are doing is not helpful or appropriate. The phrases below may be helpful in such circumstances:

“I know you’re coming from a place of concern, but what you’re doing is not really helping.”
“My body, my health, my choices. Please respect that and ease off.”
“If you really want to support me, you’ll stop making me feel ashamed and guilty.”

As a friend or family member of a person living with diabetes, how can you avoid becoming a member of the food police?

Educate yourself

If you believe that the most important aspect of managing diabetes is avoiding sugar and carbohydrates at all costs, you should educate yourself before making potentially harmful comments.

This is a common trap that the food police frequently fall into. You see your loved one eating a delicious muffin and you make a critical comment based on the assumption that they’re mismanaging their condition.

A good place to start would be to read articles on www.diabetessa.org.za on managing diabetes. However, even if it turns out that your loved one is making a ‘wrong’ or ‘unhealthy’ choice, it’s important to make peace with the fact that, ultimately, it’s their choice to make. Not yours.

Control your urge to control

When we ask someone whether they should really be eating that slice of carrot cake, it’s usually coming from a place of genuine concern. However, it’s not having the intended effect, because it’s likely to infuriate and annoy, rather than encourage healthier food choices.

So, what’s the solution? We need to recognise the fact that our loved one having diabetes elicits, in us, an overwhelming sense of being out of control. By acknowledging this feeling, we see that it leads us to try to control our loved one’s behaviour by constantly monitoring and commenting on their choices.

We need to learn to start accepting the fact that much of life itself is uncontrollable. There are certain things, such as our loved one’s dietary choices, that we need to let go and allow. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t do anything to support your loved one in making healthy choices. Read on to learn how to do this in an appropriate manner.

Offer your support

How can you convert your desire to help into a response that is truly useful for your loved one? Stop speaking and start listening. Stop advising and start asking questions. Show your loved one that you are curious and that you care.

Instead of trying to tell them what they should be doing, ask them what you can do to support them. Make yourself available to understand; and be non-judgmentally curious about their difficulties and decisions.

Research shows that social support is incredibly important for us diabetes patients. In most cases, your loved one will benefit simply by knowing that you are there and that you care, in a respectful and non-intrusive manner. Sometimes, your loved one will ask you to back off. In such cases, it’s important to give them their space.

MEET OUR EXPERT

Daniel Sher is a registered clinical psychologist who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for over 28 years. He practices from Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital, in Cape Town, where he works with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes to help his clients thrive. Visit www.danielshertherapy.com

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When the human eye sees things in proportion, we immediately find this attractive. This concept is known as the golden proportion or golden ratio, and is mentioned countless times in literature pertaining to cosmetic surgery and dental aesthetics. The golden proportion is an ancient concept, dating back to the times of the ancient Greeks. It has helped us understand why the relationship of adjacent shapes/objects makes it appeal to the human eye. The golden ratio is 1:0.618 or Pi, and is consistent in nature. The ratio between the front eight teeth, when looking directly at the central incisors, is one of these natural concepts that follows the golden proportion.

When the eight front teeth (smile line) of the top jaw follow the golden proportion, they will immediately look attractive; this is what we aim to achieve in dental aesthetics. It will always be a dentist and dental specialist’s greatest challenge when trying to recreate a smile.

The concept of the golden ratio is also seen in the relationship between the lips and teeth, the smile and teeth, and even the eyes and teeth. For any dentist to achieve that perfect smile for their patient, they must understand the golden ratio.

Just to clarify, the perfect smile does not exist in isolation and cannot be copied from person to person. To have a perfect smile is to have the right smile for you. Yes, we follow the principles that can help create that perfect ratio which may lead to a more attractive smile, but to try and achieve ‘perfection’ is only in the eye of the beholder.

Many dentists who specialise in aesthetic dentistry will understand the concept of a smile design. This is a process that we use to analyse a specific patient’s smile that helps guide the dental team in achieving their desired result; it involves using digital photography and videography to evaluate a patient’s smile line, lip line and central line, amongst other important features. We can use this information to digitally design a smile. It allows us (the dentist/specialist) to communicate the needs to the dental laboratory, in order, to create the ceramic/porcelain crowns or veneers which are to be bonded onto the front six to eight teeth (sometimes more) in the smile line. We then communicate this back to the patient. The use of a specialised dental laboratory is essential in this process as the dental technician is the one creating the ceramic/porcelain teeth.

The process of crowning/veneering teeth can be incredibly invasive as the tooth is usually irreversibly cut down to allow the ceramic prosthesis to fit. I, personally, do not advocate the cutting of healthy teeth to change their appearance. Once a tooth is cut/drilled on, there is no turning back. In cases where all other non-invasive options have been investigated and a tooth is already compromised, filled, broken, or missing, only then should the use of ceramics/porcelains be used.

I usually urge a patient to follow a less invasive route if they’re looking at changing their smile line. Orthodontics is my preferred method of moving teeth into their ideal proportion/relationship as orthodontists are incredibly skilled in creating the correct relationship between teeth. I always encourage my patients seeking an ‘aesthetic makeover’ to investigate the orthodontic process. This specific process does involve a sacrifice of sorts; wearing braces or retainers to move the teeth can be uncomfortable, cumbersome and obviously less attractive. However, it is important to understand that it is only a short-term sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, and the benefit is that you do not land up cutting healthy tooth structure.

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do” – Mother Teresa

Tooth whitening

Tooth whitening plays a massive roll in the realm of aesthetic dentistry. I am often bombarded with requests to make my patients teeth whiter. What is important to understand, is the concept of tooth colour and staining. A natural tooth can have a variety of different levels of whites, yellows, blues and, even, greys. Therefore, we classify tooth colour in shades. This can be seen quite easily if you look at your canines; the neck of a canine has more of a yellow shade then the adjacent incisor.

Tooth whitening or bleaching changes the intrinsic (natural) shade of a tooth by penetrating the enamel layer and ‘bleaching’ the layer below, the dentine. The process involves the use of a peroxide-based bleaching agent, and a heated exchange reaction takes place. Tooth sensitivity is a very common side effect. However, it is not long-lasting.

Staining of teeth involves the extrinsic surface of the tooth. This is the after-effect caused by many of the wonderful things we love to eat and drink, such as coffee, tea, red wine, fruits, some vegetables and more. Smoking is also a major factor in extrinsic tooth staining. Fortunately, extrinsic stains can be quite easily removed by an oral hygienist or a dentist with specialised cleaning instruments. I always recommend a professional cleaning before any bleaching procedure is commenced.

All the concepts I have mentioned play a pivotal role in aesthetic dentistry. In today’s times, we can easily become obsessed with our appearance and be incredibly self-conscious of our smile. We may feel pressured to achieve perfection in our smile, and that obsession can alter the very essence of why we smile in first place. The act of smiling is far more important than the way it looks!

It is vital to protect what nature has given you by following a strict protocol of maintenance and prevention. You must also never compromise your dental health and function to achieve an aesthetic outcome. It is however comforting to know that with the help of modern technology in dentistry and with the skilled hands of a dentist, specialist and dental technician, we’re able to create beautiful bespoke smiles if needed.

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Should you really be eating that?

Daniel Sher educates us and shares practical advice on how to make peace with the food police.