Talking Sense to Real Men (with Diabetes) During Men"s Health Month

http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/talking-sense-to-real-men-with-diabetes-during-mens-health-month/

Well, happy frickin’ Men’s Health Month.

Yep, it’s June. This month-long awareness-a-thon, sponsored by a Congressional health educational program, is designed to raise awareness about men’s health issues, and encourage men to focus more on their health.

We men are supposed to attend a local health fair and wear blue on Fridays (‘cause the chicks already staked out a claim to pink... although Blue Fridays is already a diabetes thing). And out of New Zealand comes the hashtag campaign #MenStartTalking to encourage reticent tough guys to have more needed conversations about health issues with health professionals, or simply with their mates.

And guess what? Real men have diabetes. Lots of us.

Luckily, there are a lot more guy-specific resources out there than you might think -- from this "men with diabetes" page over at the American Diabetes Association site, to this New Zealand based site focused on Men"s Health Month with a host of different resources. But none of them actually offer a definition for us to start from.

I mean, how do you define a real man in the first place?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, if you said: A fat slob in poor health who smokes cigarettes, drinks too much, has high blood pressure, and is a walking heart attack waiting to happen, you just described a third of all American men.

Are we really so unhealthy? Apparently so.

Dr. David Gremillion of the Men’s Health Network, says, “On average, American men live sicker and die younger than American women.” And it’s getting worse. In 1920, the ladies generally outlived us by a year. Now it’s by five years. And we best the ladies straight across the board when it comes to the top 10 causes of death in this country. Plus we have more heart disease, cancer, stroke, suicide, and HIV/AIDS.

Looking at diabetes specifically, the trend continues. Men are dropping dead from the effects of diabetes at a higher rate than women. Oh, and we really take the cake when it comes to workplace deaths: Fully 92% of workplace deaths are men.

And all of this gloom and doom actually starts before we are born. Male fetuses are at greater risk of miscarriage and stillbirth. Still, despite this fact, more boy babies are born each year than girl babies. Then the weeding out begins. By age 35, the ladies outnumber us. But on the bright side, guys, if you live to be 100 you’ll have your own personal centenarian harem. By age 100, women outnumber men eight to one.

Eat your heart out Hugh Heffner.

So what’s up with us men? Why are we doing so badly, and getting worse? And can an awareness month really help?

There are two problems with men, apparently. (Did I just feel the axis of the entire planet shift a few degrees when every female on the globe simultaneously rolled her eyes?) Let me restate: When it comes to negative male health outcomes, the problems can be traced to two things. First, men are risk-takers. At least more so than women are. And second, we don’t go to doctors.

Nurture and Nature

Let’s start with the risky businesses. Men seem to be hard-wired to take more chances in every area of life. From the bedroom to the billiard room, to the work place and the fireplace, men just seem to have a knack for getting hurt more often and more badly. Often this happens from a combination of undertaking risk and doing it in an unnecessarily risky way. It’s not enough to drive the motorcycle at 100 miles per hour. Let’s do it at night with no helmet and the headlight off.

We are more aggressive, too, and more prone to violence. At least statistically.

The cause of this near universal and seemingly inherent “maleness"? Take your choice: The Y chromosome, testosterone, or macho-man culture. Most experts think it’s a combination of all of the above (nurture and nature). We can’t change our genes, but we can change how we act. At least in theory. Which leads me nicely to how we act when it comes to doctors.

Seeing the Doctor... Or Not

The common wisdom is that men don’t go to the doctor when they are sick, but a survey by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), totally debunks this. It reports that fully 85% of men seek medical treatment when sick.

Of course, it also found that 92% of men interviewed say they waited at least a few days to see if they’d get better… So I guess the common wisdom is spot-on, after all.

Another AAFP study found that while 42% of men had been diagnosed with at least one chronic condition (defined as high blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, or diabetes), 55% of men haven’t seen a doc in over a year. Worse, it’s estimated that half of men between 18-50 don’t even have a regular doc to go see.

All of this led AAFP past President Dr. Rick Kellerman to bemoan, “One of the biggest obstacles to improving the health of men is men themselves.”

What’s up with that… er… Us?

The Girl Factor

I vote for culture as the root cause of men avoiding medical care. Backing me up is research that suggests that being manly may have nothing to do with your genitalia. A study published in the Journal of Health Psychology discovered that women who describe themselves as “brave” or “self-reliant” acted in the same bone-headed way men do when it comes to seeking out healthcare. They don’t.

Speaking of women, the increase in numbers of the fairer sex in white coats could be what it takes to a turn around the avoidance of health care seen in men. Just as men are culturally programed to be tough and independent—to the point where research shows many men downplay symptoms to male healthcare providers if and when they do finally seek help—we’re also programed to respond to females as caregivers. Call it the Mommy Effect. Apparently many men feel less stress revealing “weakness” to a female, and others feel more comfortable with a physical exam being carried out by a woman rather than by a fellow male.

Slightly off topic, but the fairer sex has one other interesting effect on men’s health-seeking avoidance. Statistics show that the driving force behind a man finally seeking medical care is female pressure. And the more closely linked the female, the greater her influence. Married men are more than twice as likely to be influenced by their spouses to seek medical care than single guys who have girlfriends.

Pussy whipped or listening to sensible council of their loved ones?

I’ll let you decide.

Don"t Need No Seatbelt

To fare better, public health experts agree that we men need to change, both as individual people, but also on a larger society-wide scale. Can either realistically happen?

Well, to illustrate individual change (and the powerful effect of the female), I love the story of the Stewardess and the Boxer. In the 1960s the late Muhammad Ali, then still boxing as Cassius Clay, was taking a commercial airline flight to a fight. When the stewardess asked Clay to buckle his seatbelt he told her, “Superman don’t need no seatbelt.”

To which she leaned over him and replied, “Superman don’t need no airplane. Buckle up.”

He did.

My point? It’s possible to talk sense into an individual man. But things would be much better for the “stronger” sex if our culture changed as well. What are the odds of that? Pretty good, actually. While we have a long way to go in the race relations department, the years of racially segregated toilets and drinking fountains seem like ancient history now (though it wasn"t so long ago). On the gender front, almost overnight, same-sex marriage has become a non-issue for the bulk of our society. So things do change.

Why not the image of what it is to be a man in our culture? I think that it’s possible, but is an awareness month the way to go?

I don’t know. Let me go ask my wife.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn"t adhere to Healthline"s editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline"s partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment
Type 2 Diabetes Diet
Diabetes Destroyer Reviews
Original Article
#DiabetesMellitus