According to the last research, a rise in obesity and sedentary lifestyle among the youth is believed to be the main reason why type 2 diabetes has become more common in children and teenagers, when in previous years the disease was rare at such ages.
José loved his mother´s chocolate pudding. He replaced water with soda. He wouldn't spend one day without eating a Portuguese custard tart. He loved to sit around playing Nintendo. When he started to lose weight, his parents were puzzled. He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at the tender age of six years-old. The doctors were confused, he was confused.
Diabetes type 2 just simply doesn't appear in people this young, he was told. But it did. Back in the 1970s this was a rare case. Today, more than 6,000 under the age of 25 in England and Wales have type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease condition where the body cannot produce or produces a small amount of insulin to control the levels of sugar in the blood. Symptoms include, but not limited to, feeling very tired, feeling extremely thirsty and weight loss.
The key substances that play a part in the development of the condition are:
· Glucose which is what the body uses for energy. Glucose is transformed from various food and drinks (like bread, rice, sugary foods, dairy, fruit).
· Insulin which is a chemical messenger that controls the amount of glucose in the body. Insulin is created in the pancreas, a gland just behind the stomach.
The human body needs glucose to work. Insulin is the key that unlocks the protective barriers in the organs and open a door so that the insulin can enter. In the body of a person with type 2 diabetes the glucose is mainly locked outside the organs and not used as energy because there is insufficient insulin. Over time the excess of glucose in the blood can cause serious conditions.
The huge rise of the disease among the youth of the UK is worrying medical staff and parents all around the country, mostly because the disease is more aggressive in younger cases. Consequences like amputation, or blindness are a possibility and life time of complications a certainty.
This condition used to be unknown in people under 40 years-old. But the tide was confirmed to be changing when the startling number of nearly 7,000 people up to age 25 were recorded with the condition in England and Wales. Unfortunately, this number is not a shock to specialists:
“Type 2 diabetes is becoming common in young adults and children mostly due to poor diet and low physical activity coupled with sedentary lifestyles frequent among this age group”, said Joseph Seyi, Diabetes Researcher with the University of Sunderland.
A national survey showed that most people ate fast food on average of two days per week with people between 16 to 20 years-old eating on average at least twice a day (Source: BBC Good Food Nation Survey).
“We are bombarded by food adverts every second of the day. But the truth is that 90% of the food in the supermarkets has stupid amounts of sugar in it. It is only natural that parents don´t think about a can of tomatoes having added sugar in it. The rise of diabetes in children is only the consequences of misinformation about the food we are eating and feeding to our families every day.”, says Oonagh Trehin a Sunderland based nutritionist.
Obesity is a common condition in the UK mostly among children and young adults. The disease is developed mainly by lack of physical exercise, over-eating (binging tendencies) or poor diet decisions. There is an undeniable link between obesity and type 2 diabetes.
When a body is over-eating or eating foods that contain a large amount of carbohydrates (the fuel that is transformed into glucose) the glucose being produced simply is too much to be absorbed by the body. The insulin is insufficient to control the glucose levels and the person becomes diabetic.
The diet most young people are being fed constantly, in the UK is full of such carbohydrates. Fast food is more common than ever, and even the traditional English breakfast is a risk.
But people have been eating like this for a long time, so why only now is the disease multiplying in such young ages? Because the balance between eating healthy and a high physical lifestyle is decreasing.
More and more we can witness sedentary lifestyles in the younger generation. Videogames and the internet is becoming the primal entertainment source for children and teenagers and both of them don´t require any sort of physical activity.
“You don´t believe how many of my students just don´t come to my lessons because they don´t feel like running. Some of them don´t even know why there is a need for exercise. It is just getting out of control. It is sad to see honestly! Because they just don´t understand what they are doing to themselves and their parents don´t care about it either”, says Jotapê Roque, a physical education teacher.
José followed the healthy choice and now he is vegetarian and exercises every day. He enjoys showing his mother healthy dessert recipes and is living in a controlled pace with the disease.
For more information on Diabetes Type 2: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/how_we_help/community/diabetes-support-forum