I genuinely do not even know where to begin:
rambling
adj
- straggling or sprawling haphazardly; unplanned: a rambling old house
- (of speech or writing) lacking a coherent plan; diffuse and disconnected
- (Botany) (of a plant, esp a rose) profusely climbing and straggling
No, I haven't suddenly become a plant or an old house. But I can sense this post will
lack a coherent plan, for want of a better phrase. So apologies in advance, dear reader, as this post will contain a disorganised rant about what I saw on BBC Breakfast this morning (18th June). Mainly because I'm still super peeved by some of the content.
For all you IBDers in the UK, I'm sure you would have heard about the segment that appeared on National breakfast television this morning. And if you're still not aware, let me tell you a bit about the ridiculousness that is Dr Sally Mitton...
"If you have a lot of junk food in your diet before your diagnosis, it actually makes you more likely to develop Crohn's disease...a lot of antibiotics - particularly in younger life - seem to be more likely to develop this condition."
Yep. Ignore everything you've ever been told/read/researched. We all ate bad food as a child, and lo and behold...CROHN'S DISEASE. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.
Lets look at the stats first - as I found this really quite concerning. In the year 2003/04 there were
4937 reported cases of young people being admitted to hospital with Crohn's disease. In the year 2013/14 that number had quadrupled to
19,405. In a decade?!!
Obviously I am all for raising awareness of IBDs in the public domain. If I wasn't, I wouldn't blog, tweet, post on Facebook, Instagram and do every other world wide web option. Let alone be as vocal as I am about with my peers. However, the most important thing to remember is that if you're going to put it on a platform accessible by many, i.e.
BBC Breakfast, then perhaps make sure that the information being given is correct? And if it isn't correct (because you don't know), don't
suggest or
assume things. It only compounds and makes it a hell of a lot harder for us to clear it up.
For a gastroenterologist to make such a sweeping statement as she did? I was genuinely dumbfounded. Granted I had not been awake long and was still sleepy. But when I saw her talk I shouted at my TV and immediately burst into tears. Lord.
I just couldn't believe what I was watching?! I tweeted about it and since then, my Twitter has gone nuts. It really has struck a chord with a lot of people.
And I think (unfortunately) that although Crohn's and Colitis UK went on BBC Breakfast to raise awareness, they're now going to have to help us IBDers in the real world, clarify exactly what we go through. Don't tell me that at the age of 26, something that I ate when I was 7 has given me this disease.
I'm not having that. Not at all. If that was the case, there wouldn't be any bloody junk food available for the fear of people developing Crohn's. Utter shite. All of it *slaps keyboard*
Look at me when I was 18. That is not the body of someone who's eaten all things junk food. That is the body of someone who's intestines have gone mental and started attacking itself. But the beauty of hindsight is that I was ever so blissfully unaware. Although in a weird way it's something to marvel at, for all the wrong reasons...I just look really odd; all mouth with a small head and a skinny little bod.
As David Barker of Crohn's and Colitis UK said;
"We need to do more research into these areas to better the understanding of the disease."
And when the suggestion of junk food and antibiotics was brought up again, he verbally slapped it down with what we all were thinking, in that
"the reality is, we don't know."
If you missed the news this morning, or want to get riled up again (like I have most definitely been guilty of this afternoon) you can see the full clip here:
Crohn's on the BBC
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