Teach kids about healthy diet, exercise

Experts say parents need to be alert as number of child diabetics increasing every year

LUCKNOW: Apart from inculcating good moral values and supervising studies of their children, parents also need to discuss healthy diet and benefits of outdoor activity with their kids, to ensure they do not become diabetic.

Diabetes is associated with abnormally high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood

“What is alarming is that children of Class 6, 7, and 8 are coming as diabetes patients. This is avoidable if we understand the reasons behind it,” said Prof Kausar Usman, senior faculty, department of medicine, King George’s Medical University.

Prof Usman said Indian diabetics were one decade younger than those in western countries, which meant Indian population got diabetes earlier than those in other places.

But with kids becoming diabetic, parents need to be alert. “There is no study to tell the exact prevalence rate of childhood diabetes but the number of cases is growing every year,” he said.

Dr BKS Chauhan, chief medical superintendent of the secretariat dispensary said one of the known causes of diabetes was family history but many more reasons were man-made, one of them being lifestyle.

This year, the theme of the World Diabetes Day ( November 14) is ‘Family and Diabetes’ and it will focus on how the family can remain united against the disease. “The aim should be to check all possible means that can cause diabetes in family members,” said Prof Vinod Jain, director skill institute at KGMU.

Prof Usman said that the prime issue with childhood diabetes was that when the child reached 40 years of age or was older, he would have more complications as compared to a person who caught the disease at the age of 40 or above. “The most productive age of the child when family and professional life need maximum will remain disturbed due to the disease,” said Prof Usman.

“If we ignore children now, India will have maximum young diabetics in coming years. Parents should talk openly about this to their children,” he said.