TL;DR
You don’t have to choose between your family’s Thanksgiving and your health. Thanksgiving with diabetes is about changing the habits around the plate, like a walk between dinner and pie, a second plate saved for tomorrow, and a loving check on our elders’ feet, so we keep the food and the people we love.
Key Points
- November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year.
- About 15 in every 100 Louisiana adults have been told they have diabetes, so it’s at almost every one of our tables.
- A 2022 review of seven studies found that a few minutes of light walking lowered blood sugar and insulin, so a family stroll before dessert counts.
- “Fix a plate for later” is already our tradition. Use it for yourself and split the feast into two good meals.
- Diabetes can steal feeling from the feet. Checking feet every day and reporting sores early is how we keep our people walking.
Happy Wednesday, beloved.
Close your eyes for a second and go to the kitchen. Not any kitchen. The kitchen. The one where the oven has been running since before sunrise, somebody’s uncle is “just tasting” the dressing for the fourth time, and the mac and cheese is sitting under foil like a crown jewel nobody is allowed to touch until grace is said.
That kitchen is love. I need you to hear me say that before I say anything else, because too many health articles this time of year treat our food like it’s the enemy. It’s not. Our food is memory. It’s your grandmother’s hands in the sweet potato pie and your mother’s voice telling you to stir the greens slower. Nobody is taking that from you, and I’m certainly not going to try.
What I want to talk about is the sugar that comes to the table with us. Not the sugar in the pie. The sugar in our blood.
Diabetes Already Has a Seat at Our Table
November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and the timing couldn’t be more honest. In Louisiana, 15.4% of adults said in 2024 that a health professional had told them they have diabetes. Nationally, the Office of Minority Health reports that 12.4% of Black adults were living with diagnosed diabetes that same year, and that doesn’t count the folks who have it and don’t know yet.
So when the family gathers on the 26th, look around. Somebody at that table is checking their sugar in the bathroom before dinner. Somebody else is skipping their pill because they don’t want anyone to ask. And somebody has a sore on their foot they haven’t told a soul about.
Thanksgiving with diabetes isn’t about a sad little plate of dry turkey and steamed broccoli while everybody else eats good. It’s about changing the things around the plate, so the people we love are still at the table next year and the year after that.
We Already Know How to Fix a Plate for Later
Here’s something our families have always done better than anybody. We fix plates. Before you leave Auntie’s house, there’s foil and a paper plate and a little bit of everything wrapped up for tomorrow. Sometimes there’s a plate fixed for the neighbor, the pastor, or the cousin who had to work.
So fix one for yourself, too. Before you sit down, decide that the second helping of dressing and that slice of pie are going home with you in foil. You still get to have them. You just get to have them tomorrow, when your body isn’t already handling a whole feast. Splitting one big meal into two good ones is gentler on your blood sugar, and honestly, Thanksgiving leftovers taste better the next day anyway. You know I’m right.
When you do fill your plate, let the greens, green beans, and turkey take up more room first, then add your mac and cheese, your yams, and your rice dressing. Nothing is forbidden. We’re just letting the vegetables walk in the door ahead of everybody else.
Take a Little Second Line Before the Pie
This is my favorite part, and it’s free.
Researchers who pulled together seven studies in a 2022 review in Sports Medicine found that breaking up long stretches of sitting with just a few minutes of light walking lowered people’s blood sugar and insulin after eating. Standing helped a little. Walking helped more. We’re talking two to five minutes at an easy pace, not a gym session in your church clothes.
So here’s what I want our families to try this year. After dinner and before dessert, everybody who can gets up and takes a walk. Around the block, down to the corner, out to look at somebody’s new car. Bring the kids. Bring the music if you want. Call it a little second line for the cook. The ones who can’t walk far can stand on the porch and wave everybody off like a parade. Then come back in and cut that pie with a clear conscience.
It gets people out of their chairs and away from the TV for a minute, and it might be the best conversation you have all day.
Loving Our Elders Without Policing Their Plates
Now, let’s talk about Big Mama.
Every family has an elder whose sugar everybody tiptoes around. Somebody whispers “should she be eating that?” from across the room. Somebody else hides the cake. And Big Mama, who has buried a husband and raised six children and run a household on faith and a fixed income, does not appreciate being managed like a toddler at her own holiday.
Policing doesn’t work, beloved. It just makes people hide. What works is closeness. Sit down next to her. Ask her how she’s been feeling. Ask whether she’s been getting to her doctor and whether her medicine is costing her too much. Offer to take that after-dinner walk with her, arm in arm. If you’re the one who drives her to appointments, make sure the next one is on the calendar before the year ends, especially with Medicaid changes coming in January that could make coverage harder to hold onto.
And don’t leave the men out of this conversation. Our uncles and granddaddies are the ones most likely to say “I’m fine” right up until they’re not. If you’ve been reading our Strong Enough to Live series, you know that getting our men to the doctor is an act of love, not nagging.
Let’s Talk About Our Feet
I titled this piece the way I did on purpose, and I want to be gentle but clear about it.
Over time, high blood sugar can damage the nerves and blood vessels in the feet. A person can lose feeling and not notice a blister, a cut, or a sore from a too-tight church shoe. A small wound that won’t heal can turn into a serious infection. Too many of our families know what comes after that, because we’ve watched it happen to someone we love.
The good news is that so much of this is preventable with simple, daily attention:
- Look at your feet every day, including the bottoms and between the toes. If you can’t see them well, use a mirror or ask somebody you trust.
- Wear comfortable shoes and socks, even around the house, so you’re not barefoot on a kitchen floor full of dropped forks and hot grease.
- Tell your doctor about any sore, color change, or numbness right away, not after the holidays.
If you’re helping care for an elder, offering to check their feet with them can be one of the most loving things you do this season. It’s tender work. Our people have always done tender work for each other.
Grateful, and Still Here
Thanksgiving was never only about the food for us. It’s about who made it, who’s eating it, and who we’re missing. The whole point of all of this, the walk and the second plate and the foot check, is to keep more of our people at the table and fewer in the stories we tell about the ones who are gone.
So eat the mac and cheese, beloved. Taste the pie. Then get up, take a walk with somebody you love, and fix a plate for tomorrow. That’s not giving anything up. That’s how we stay.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving. I’ll see you next Wednesday.
This article is for general wellness information and isn’t a substitute for advice from your own doctor. If you have diabetes, talk with your health care provider about what’s right for your body, your medicines, and your holiday plans.
Sources
- America’s Health Rankings, Diabetes in Louisiana (CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, 2024).
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, Diabetes and Black/African Americans.
- Buffey, A.J., et al. “The Acute Effects of Interrupting Prolonged Sitting Time in Adults with Standing and Light-Intensity Walking on Biomarkers of Cardiometabolic Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Sports Medicine, 2022.
About the Author
Denise Tureaud writes Black Source Media’s Wednesday health and wellness column, bringing our community practical, hopeful guidance on caring for our bodies, our minds, and each other.
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