For day 24 of the WEGO Challenge we are prompted to "Give yourself, your condition, or your health focus a mascot. Is it a real person? Fictional? Mythical being? Describe them"
This topic was somewhat easy for me as I have thought about it, and even discussed it with another diabetes advocate at one point. MY choice for a diabetes Mascot is a Manatee, and apparently a Manatee has been associated with health benefits as the Native Americans ground the bones to treat asthma and earaches.
Why I associate diabetes with a Manatee is they look like a pancreas (at least to me!), and like diabetes, the Manatee is quite misunderstood by many people. Manatee's sit around all day feeding and that causes the misconception that all Manatees are overweight, just like the false misconceptions that all diabetics are overweight.
Yes, the Manatee also has some significance to the Blue Heel Society as Native Americans used Manatee hides to also make shoes. The main difference between diabetes and a Manatee is that the Manatee is on the endangered list, whereas the number of people diagnosed with diabetes just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
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