Examining the Mayo Clinic Diabetes Diet

Filed in archive Resources on December 19, 2011

© kirinqueen

As you may have heard, the nationally-renowned Mayo Clinic, based in Rochester, Minnesota, recently released a guidebook of suggestions and strategies for people who are suffering from diabetes or those in a high-risk group. Titled "The Mayo Clinic Diabetes Diet," the book looks at a wide range of eating approaches and lifestyle decisions with the goal of helping people lose weight, lower blood sugar levels, and make those long-term changes that will prevent the reemergence of risk factors over time.

The book is divided into three sections: "Lose It!, Live It!," and "The Mayo Clinic Diabetes Diet Journal." The first section gives plans and suggestions for getting into shape. This includes foods and diets that provide a quick yet safe means of weight loss, such as beans, leafy vegetables, and whole grains. The section centers around a two-week diet plan that endeavors to provide straightforward and realistic goals for losing the weight. The second section, "Live It!," works to turn that diet into a lifestyle change by providing exercise tips, motivational advice, and other forms of encouragement. It further addresses common problems voiced by people who strive to lose weight: busy schedules, a dislike of healthy foods, an inability to stay motivated with exercise, and a lack of familial support. In this manner, the book acts on a psychological and mental level as well as a physical one. Finally, the journal in the third section allows readers the ability to monitor their progress and work towards their goals.

While the book is a good resource for those who need extra encouragement, and while it even focuses on blood sugar levels as well as weight loss, "The Mayo Clinic Diabetes Diet" is no different from any other generic health or dieting book. It offers all the standard dieting guidelines, highlights all the food that we already know to be healthy, and is far more interested in simply losing weight than in living a healthy life with diabetes. For the informed diabetes sufferer, there is little new information to be found here.

The broad-based, watered-down approach exhibited here underlies the changing nature of diabetes in America, Type II in particular. For those of us already suffering from the disease, there are many places we can go to get information and to communicate with others in our situation, places like this website and DiabeticConnect included. But with obesity rates on the rise and diabetes expected to afflict a staggering percentage of Americans in the next couple of decades, more and more people are perusing diabetes articles and searching for mainstream advice. The Mayo Clinic book, in targeting the next generation of diabetes patients, attempts to do just that.