ABSTRACT
We live in a social environment that understands diabetes as a consequence of gluttony and inactivity – an individual problem rooted in personal choice. The common inquiry ‘should you be eating that?’ prevails as a reminder that the person with diabetes deserves her chronic illness – for it was her bad choices that got her there. This chapter delves into three aspects of the pervasive metanarrative that maintains the social conditions of diabetes: first, people with diabetes do not take care of themselves; second, to achieve health, diabetics just need to follow simple rules; and third, diabetics are an economic drain on the health system. These and other aspects of the metanarrative function to reduce the autonomy of people who have diabetes, minimize their authority over their own choices, and affirm an outsider authoritative surveillance regarding lifestyle that is predicated on misunderstandings of the condition.
