Obese Kids at Big Risk for Diabetes

Children who are seriously overweight are at a high risk for developing type 2 diabetes. This disease normally occurred in adults until the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.

Now, kids who have developed this disease early on face a lifetime of being at a high risk for complications of diabetes. This includes kidney failure, heart disease, high blood pressure, miscarriages, even death.

Type 2 diabetes in young people was practically unheard of until the early 1980s.

Experts blame the U.S. epidemic on obesity. About 15 percent of children and teens ages 6 to 19 are overweight. Also, more than 10 percent of children between ages 2 and 5 are overweight, up from 7 percent in 1994. Those figures have nearly tripled for adolescents in the past two decades.

Until recent times, children almost only got type 1 diabetes, which occurs because the pancreas produces little or no insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the body makes too little insulin or is resistant to it. This insulin resistance is an early warning sign of type 2 diabetes in adults and children, and obesity goes hand-in-hand with it.

Sedentary lifestyle blamed

The couch potato lifestyle of today's kids is partly to blame for the obesity problem. Kids spend too much time in front of TV, computer and video game screens instead of exercising. Also, many schools have cut down on their physical education programs.

While they're not getting enough exercise, they're getting too much of high-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar foods and not enough fiber in their diets.

Of course, it's not just kids who are tipping the scales at dangerous weights. Often, their parents or other relatives are overweight. According to the Surgeon General's Office, overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. That increases to an 80 percent chance if a parent is overweight or obese.

People tolerate obesity. Many think it's just a matter of looks, but it's really a matter of health.

Health consequences seen in kids

Some consequences of being a seriously overweight child are already being seen. For example, there was a recent study of Native Americans, who have a high incidence of type 2 diabetes. The study looked at 51 children with diabetes and considered clinic "graduates" diagnosed before age 17 and now are between the ages 18 and 33. Of those, seven have died, three are on dialysis, one became blind at age 26 and one had a toe amputation. Also, of 56 pregnancies, only 35 resulted in live births.

It's more serious when children get diabetes and then develop signs of complications. Having these problems early on can lead to many health problems, and shorten life expectancy.

Watching your child's weight

Preventing type 2 diabetes may start in the crib. The Surgeon General's Office offers this advice to parents to help ensure that their children don't wind up with a weight problem or worse:

• Be a good role model for your child. Eat healthy foods, and stay physically active yourself.

• Don't use food as a reward or punishment.

• Encourage your child to drink water, and limit intake of beverages with added sugars, such as soft drinks, fruit juice drinks and sports drinks. Your body is 60 percent water, so you need to drink water.

• Minimize the sedentary activities. Limit TV or computer time to a half hour or hour a day. Take young kids out on the tricycle for a ride every afternoon for an hour.

• Plan for healthy snacks. Stock the refrigerator with fat-free or low-fat milk, fresh fruit and vegetables instead of soft drinks or snacks that are high in fat, calories or added sugars.

• Don't put your child on a crash diet. Do try and change eating or drinking habits. Simple measures can be work. Cut back on the number of glasses of juice offered a day, make the glass of whole milk skim, and change the bag of chips to a bag of cherries.

Sources:

The American Diabetes Association

The US Surgeon General, Overweight and Obesity Fact Sheet: Overweight in Children and Adolescents

This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.