The incidence of diabetes is soaring in the United States.
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) calls it an epidemic.
Seven percent of all Americans are now known to have the
disease. In New York City the figures are even higher: almost
thirteen percent of all New Yorkers now have diabetes. Based
on current trends, the CDC says that one in three Americans
born five years ago will get diabetes in the course of their
lifetime.
Many people think of diabetes as primarily a disease of old
age, but this is no longer so. What is now called "Type 2"
diabetes used to be called Adult-onset diabetes. The name had
to be changed because more and younger people are getting
it.
Type 1 diabetes usually appears in young people. There are no
known environmental causes and it is believed to be basically
genetic with possibly some environmental triggers. Type 2
diabetes is linked to obesity, physical inactivity and
diet.
According to the CDC, diabetes can cause amputations, heart
disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, pregnancy
complications, and deaths related to flu and pneumonia. Heart
disease is the leading cause of diabetes-related deaths.
Death rates are 2-4 times higher for adults with diabetes
than for those without the disease, at any given age.
The CDC and the other public health officials who work to
inform the public and to reduce the disease and to lessen its
destructive effects are medical and scientific professionals.
They cannot be expected to notice the moral aspect of the
problem, and perhaps they would get in trouble with the
secular guardians of scientific purity if they did.
There are other diseases that are better known as being
entangled with morality since they are directly transmitted
through immoral acts. However the causes of diabetes are also
strongly related to moral issues.
Diabetes is a disease that has a strong link to physical
excess: it is associated with obesity, which is clearly the
result of eating too much, and eating the wrong foods.
The wrong foods are known colloquially as "junk foods." The
basic purpose of food is nourishment, to supply the body with
what it needs to be healthy and strong in order for it to be
able to fulfill its higher purposes in avodas Hashem.
The fact that there is pleasure associated with eating is a
great chesed in that we are drawn to do what we anyway
must.
"Junk foods" turn things upside down: They are specially
engineered by science to give pleasure, and any nutritive
contribution is quite incidental. What draws people to eat
them is quite simply the pursuit of pleasure, and nothing
more.
It is a basic moral obligation for one to have the discipline
and self-control to ensure "that he will not be unduly
influenced by natural desires" (Mesillas Yeshorim,
Neki'us, beginning of Chapter 10). A person must be in
control of his desires and allow them to be indulged only
where and when it is appropriate. If his desires lead him to
obesity and possibly to diabetes, they are clearly not
properly supervised.
Certainly, the moral failing that is behind obesity is quite
mild when compared to other decadence that prevails in modern
society in which violence and arayos are prominent and
even admired. Yet many who manage to remain largely aloof
from the worst excesses of modernity are still stained with
this problem.
(It is worth mentioning that moral principles of judgment
such as this one are meant for each person to apply to
himself, whom he knows best, inside and out, as it were. It
is improper and impractical to use such principles to
criticize someone else. Also, and importantly, these are only
general principles and do not necessarily apply to each individual
case.)
All the medical experts concur that the best way to end the
diabetes epidemic is by reducing obesity, and the recommended
way to do that is by eating proper foods in moderation.
Recognizing that weight is a moral problem and not just a
medical one also suggests that those who have to correct past
excesses by going on a diet would be well-advised to include
a daily dose of mussar as an important part of their
diet regimen. Even those who already suffer from diabetes,
can only benefit from studying mussar — may
Hashem send them a refuah sheleimoh.
