Put Down The Donut

One thing that I love about my job is that I get to see a very real cross section of middle America. Perhaps not the most flattering examples, but I get to see many of the kinds of people that you might hear about through the media who cause you to ask "do people really do that?" Yes, they do.

As you know, I sell life insurance, which means that people give me a listing of their medications. You can tell a great deal about someone's state of health by finding out what drugs they take. I was meeting with a woman the other day who had diabetes. She told me that it ran in her family, implying that it was just something that she suffered from due to bad luck and bad genes. A common medication for diabetes is Metformin, and most people take about 500 to 1000 mg. 2000 mg is a level at which it is difficult to get life insurance.

She was on two other medications in addition to 2500 mg of Metformin. This is an impressive drug load, but the best part of this story is what she was doing at the exact moment that she described the contents of her home pharmacy. In her hand she held a glazed donut which she was absently putting into her mouth.

Thanks to my regular reading of Craig Fear's blog, I am well aware of the dangers of sugar. In fact, when I first noticed the donuts on the table, I thought to myself that I used to enjoy donuts, but that now I think of them as a one way ticket to Diabetes land, which is not a land which I wish to visit.

This woman apparently does not read Craig's blog.

In a nation where people tell you about the 2500 mg of Metformin they take every day while eating a sugar glazed donut, one does not have to wonder why countries from Japan to China to France are surpassing us on the world stage. How can we hope to have out kids compete in math and science when we can't even teach them to put down the donut before it kills them?

Note: At the time of this posting, I was an agent and manager with American Income Life, a fantastic company which is one of the best places to learn the ropes of sales while helping to educate and protect families who really need the insurance protection AIL has to offer.