"Lite it Blue" Mackinac Bridge - Mackinaw City, Michigan

Day 5 of the WEGO Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge suggests we write an “Ekphrasis Post” inspired by a random image found at flickr.com and to link it to our health focus. One of my most favorite things is to learn new things, especially words that I have not yet encountered, and “Ekphrasis” was certainly new to me! According to Wikipedia “Ekphrasis” can be defined as a “graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art”.

While I can certainly link this fabulous image to diabetes, it may not be as graphic nor dramatic as the definition describes. Of course, the deserved plug for the Blue Heel Society aside, most of us also equate the color blue to a multitude of awareness efforts by a number of dubious organizations.

Now allow me to offer a real life example of one way we can certainly link the color blue to diabetes, as told once by a very nice man, who also happens to be a Joslyn Medalist. Here’s where some may think things get graphic.

Before Blood Glucose Meters, the only method available to guesstimate “sugar” levels in the body, was to add urine to a base solution (Benedict’s was the name I think), and the color it turned indicated the glucose levels. Red was high, yellow was medium, green was low. The original color of the Benedict’s solution was BLUE! So even before the Internet & online advocacy, the color blue certainly was a part of diabetes.

Now for the dramatic...I was involved in some Market Research on Facebook that was meant to identify what color the masses felt best represented diabetes. That’s where the color scheme starts to get a little rainbow’ish. Now most everyone knows pink is the color of Breast Cancer advocacy. But our semi-informal research showed us that Many people were all over the spectrum, when it came to choosing what color best ‘defines’ diabetes’

There was no clear cut winner in this poll that saw orange, grey, grey & red, red, purple and yes, blue made the cut. Did this tell us that we needed to push hard to unseat blue as the favorite color for diabetes? At the time it did, but in retrospect, trying to change the color associated with diabetes from blue to something else was a gross mistake. Blue should be, and has become, the de facto standard color worldwide that we associate with diabetes. Bulldings all over the world turn BLUE in celebration of World Diabetes Day.

One more piece of drama associated with the color BLUE & the above image. The "Lite it Blue" campaign for the Mackinac Bridge was for Autism Awareness...