A same-gender ballroom world champ, Emily Coles, 37, hosted the inaugural Dance Out Diabetes Dance-A-Thon on Friday at the Russian Center. The event helped educate and raise funds leading up to World Diabetes Day, which is today. For more info, visit www.danceoutdiabetes.org.

What is the goal of the event? Dance Out Diabetes was conceived by Theresa Garnero, who is a diabetes health educator. Her vision, which I think is a fantastic one, is that people with diabetes are told a lot about the importance of exercising, but not always told what exercise to do or how to make exercise fun.

Are you a diabetic as well? I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was 3½. I’ve grown up with it and I was raised with a really strong belief that exercise is crucial for health care. I’ve always been active. Dance was one of the things that I enjoyed the most.

I understand you use an OmniPod insulin pump instead of a traditional one. How does that help you on the dance floor? What I really love about the OmniPod is that I don’t have to have any pockets. The pod itself, it’s called a patch pump, is pretty small and it’s attached directly to my body.