Sometimes, it really is just bad luck and/or bad genetics that cause
diabetes, be it type 1 or 2.  I was training for a half-ironman
triathlon when I came down with it.  Although, in my case, it turned
out to be type 1.  The fact is that much is still unknown about the
causes of diabetes.  There are several people at my work and several
more at my church that are all fairly thin that have been diagnosed
with type 2.  Their ages range from 25 to 55.  Clearly, it is not
always lifestyle that causes type 2.  In some cases, it may even be
the same mechanisms as those which cause type 1, but it is thought
that these mechanisms act more slowly in adults than children.

How do you deal with the constant stream of supposedly
sympathetic support offered by friends and family when
they learn that you have diabetes, and proceed to lecture
you about how it's your own fault for eating like a pig
for all these years?

I'm 42, 5'9" and 180, and I'm supposed to be losing 39-40 lbs,
but I'm still thinner than most of them. And none of them exercise
at all - they just sit on their couches and watch TV.  I don't go
to the gym, but I am a little bit active: I teach dance several
nights a week, and I also go out and do pretty aerobic dancing
each weekend.  (Of course, now with this condition, I also go
for a walk every day for at least a mile or two.)
It just doesn't seem fair, and I have never once ever
criticized their utterly sedentary lifestyles!

Besides, don't they remember who I was eating all those dinners
with for the last 20 years?

Some of them also insist on giving me bizarre advice, such as not
to drink diet sodas because that is one of the causes of diabetes.

They never raise their voices when criticizing my condition;
they offer it by way of sympathetic explanation.   But I can
hear the deadly accusations in their tone.

I'm a native American on my mother's side, and my father's mother
had diabetes, and my thin sister had diabetes, and so I tend to
think that I have a genetic predisposition for the disease.

But they can't accept that, and just harp on me about what a
fat pig I've been and now I'm getting the consequences.

I wish there were some way to get them to stop.
I feel bad enough already.