That hasn't really happened to me.  My husband claims that I eat like a pig,
but it is him who eats like a pig.  To some people, it might appear that I
am eating a large volume of food because I tend to eat a lot of salads.  But
I eat them with no dressing, so there aren't very many calories in there.

I have had silly things said, such as the bowl of candy I used to constantly
keep on my coffee table was to blame for the diabetes.  And yes, it's true
that I had candy there.  But it wasn't candy that I liked and I didn't eat
it.  I just liked to have something colorful there.

I'm a former dance teacher, and just prior to my diagnosis with GD, I was
working at a golf course.  So I was very active.

Exactly!

Yeah, I've heard that one too.

Yep.  I'm part Cherokee on my Mom's side.  Have diabetes on both sides of
the family.

I guess I'm lucky that I don't have many people who do that to me.

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.