Diabetes in children

Growing up, most of us understood diabetes to be a disease that affects really old people. Fast forward to today, the disease equally affects children, as well, all over the world. Experts attribute this to lifestyle changes. Life is more demanding in today’s world that parents have to meet the demands of balancing work and life and this is difficult. As a result, they neglect preparing proper healthy meals for themselves and their children. Parents are not eating right, so are their children. The increasing Westernisation and urbanisation of our population over the past few decades has also been blamed. This has seen a country like South Africa ranking highly in obesity statistics.

You are what you eat

Most children consume junk and fast food because women find it easy to order in to create more time for their busy schedules. Fast food is convenient, accessible, budget-friendly and on the go. The only problem with fast food is that it’s salt, sugar and fat content is extremely high, making it massively unhealthy. To top that off fewer children participate in extramural sporting activities or even “physically” play at home since the invention of gaming consoles, smartphones and computers. Parents often complain about the lack of time to workout at home and that gyms are costly and  were closed as a result of the lockdown. This sedentary, unhealthy lifestyle increases the risk of developing diseases such as diabetes.

What is diabetes

When you have diabetes your body is unable to use the glucose from the food that you eat. The glucose comes from seed breads, biscuits, breakfast cereals, pasta, rice, rye, maize, barley, wheat, legumes, all varieties of fruit and non-starchy vegetables (high in fibre, rich source of minerals and vitamins) and starchy vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn and parsnips.) Diabetes highlights the importance of a well-balanced eating pattern. There are three different types of diabetes that you can develop; these are Type 1 Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes and Gestational Diabetes. Diabetes is not a life sentence as it can easily be managed and individuals living with this condition can live a long, healthy life. A healthy child grows up to become a healthy adult and will instil the principles of healthy eating and lifestyle in his or her children in future, vice versa.

Type 1 Diabetes:

If you have seen someone living with diabetes injecting themselves or their child with insulin, it means they have Type 1 diabetes. They inject themselves with insulin every day and they need to have a exercise regime plus a strict diet in place.  Type 1 diabetes develops when your pancreas stops creating insulin and commonly happens in individuals that are young and under the age of 30. It can also occur in extremely young children. The onset is not only really fast, but is frightening and is commonly believed to be the result of the body attacking and destroying its own cells.

Type 2 Diabetes:

85 to 90% of all individuals with diabetes have Type 2 and although most sufferers are over the age of 40, young people are also developing this condition due to being both overweight and living sedentary lives. The risk is exacerbated by lifestyle factors such as high blood pressure, being obese, not exercising enough and incorrect eating. Losing weight often reduces the levels of glucose and medication can also assist.

Gestational Diabetes

This type of diabetes is a temporary condition that occurs during pregnancy and disappears after the birth of the baby. Thereafter, both mother and child are inclined to contracting diabetes in the future.

Diabetes and Covid-19

Diabetes has been identified as comorbidity, meaning that if anyone living with diabetes contracts Covid-19, the symptoms are likely to be harsher than in a healthy and fit person. According to the Paediatric & Adolescent Endocrinology & Diabetes Society – South Africa (Pead-SA) it is not clear that children have the same risk factors as adults for serious illness. “Reports suggest that children with type 1 diabetes do not contract the Corona virus more frequently than other children and do not have more severe forms of COVID-19 than other children. In China and Italy, no-one under 25 with type 1 diabetes landed up in hospital or with severe disease (needing ICU). In South Africa, we are starting to see a few children with COVID-19 disease and the pattern does not seem to have changed from the rest of the world. Therefore, children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes should not be treated any differently from other children in terms of going back to school.”

Take care

If your child is living with diabetes Pead-SA recommends the following:

• Better control means better health, particularly in winter when everyone gets sick.
• Children with type 1 diabetes should have a flu vaccine.
• Any illness will affect glucose control, which then needs extra attention.
• If children are ill, they or their caregivers should not delay in contacting their healthcare provider because they are afraid of Covid-19.