It’s a funny thing. Diabetes is an everyday condition the person with it must manage. What most of us with diabetes need to do, and what our doctors would love us to do, often requires changing our behaviors: to eat healthier, become more active or exercise, check our blood sugar more often.

Yet this is all “told” to us by our health care providers. Think how much easier it would be if what you were told to do you were actually shown to do. Perhaps a dietitian would take you food shopping and show you how to read labels. Perhaps there’d be a kitchen at your clinic and at your next appointment you’d cook a healthy meal with nutritionist.

A small article in this month’s Diabetic Living magazine caught my eye, “Walk with a Doc.” Walk with a Doc is a walking program that was inspired by a cardiologist, Dr. David Sabgir, who was frustrated he couldn’t get his patients to exercise.

He began telling his patients, “If my family and I are at the park Sunday would you come walk with us?. He collected names of his patients who were interested and the rest as they say is history. Today Walk with a Doc has more than 160 participating sites in more than 35 states.

For a condition that relies so heavily on asking people to change their behavior, “acting into the change,” doing with people works a whole lot better.