Samaritan Health Services

Education: the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. The result produced by instruction, training, or study.

Much of the emphasis in diabetes education today is on producing behavior change. This comes through providing information, skill building, encouragement, role playing and interactive discussion among people and families with diabetes. And setting goals.

Diabetes affects many areas of our health. And each of these areas are affected by our actions. Because of that, what we do (or do not do) each day may have an effect on our diabetes control and overall health. In other words, your actions and behaviors may very well affect your health, and there’s only one person who ultimately controls your behavior… you.

The American Association of Diabetes Educators, an organization that represents thousands of Diabetes Educators across the U.S., provides tools to help diabetes educators work with their patients to make some of these behavior changes easier.

For many people, by the time they’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, they’ve had years to develop some habits or behaviors, making it difficult to make changes to improve their health. That’s especially true if you feel “OK,” and don’t have any particular complaints, or have not developed any complications from diabetes. However, most of us know that even though we feel “OK,” the dangers of uncontrolled diabetes can bring on complications later in life. Even still, that doesn’t always motivate us to change.

“I don’t want to change my behavior,” a patient told me recently. How often have you said that to yourself? Especially if you feel pretty good and don’t have any specific complaints about your health? But, if you’ve met with a diabetes educator before, chances are you’ve been asked to set a behavior change goal, or pick one thing to work on to improve your health. It’s not that we’re trying to make your life difficult or ask you to do “the impossible,” we are trying to help you see one thing you can change to improve your health – making smaller, more attainable changes. The choice has to be yours. To have someone else tell you to cut out the chips or to start walking every day or whatever, simply won’t work.

Start by asking yourself, what are you willing to do to improve your health? Then ask, what will get in your way, and how will you overcome those challenges? Even the smallest changes in habits, or behavior, may result in important benefits to your health.