Diabetic girls skip insulin to lose weight Explore This Story A
dirty little secret is shared by many young women with Type 1
diabetes – when they skip their insulin, they lose weight. This
is dangerous and potentially life-threatening behaviour, experts
in the field warn, but one that is hard to quash in a world
obsessed with body image. Psychiatrist Patricia Colton, who
works in the eating disorders clinic at Toronto General
Hospital, has had one diabetic patient in her twenties go blind,
and another the same age suffer renal failure, as a result of
avoiding their medication. Doctors started guessing females were
deliberately skipping their insulin as a weight control measure
in the late '80s, Colton says, and notes that recent studies
have revealed it is widespread, affecting approximately a third
of diabetic young women. Though Colton was concerned media
coverage of the issue might spark copy-cat behaviour, it has
become so widespread "it is too late to keep it a secret. "They
are wiping out 80 years of p