Why Is Type 2 Diabetes Increasing in Children?
Why is type 2 diabetes increasing in children? Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes. More and more children are developing type 2 diabetes. Let’s examine the causes and treatment of diabetes.
The answer to why type 2 diabetes is increasing in children is simple. Our children are increasingly becoming more overweight and obese. hildhood and adolescent obesity has doubled in the last 20 years. Causes of this are a sedentary lifestyle, overeating, and poor diet, or basically eating too much and exercising too little.
As the visceral fat increases, especially around the abdomen, the risk of the body resisting insulin rises, thus leading to type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes used to be something that adults got and now anyone can get it. At the beginning of the 1990s, childhood onset type 2 diabetes was rare. This is an epidemic-like rise and should be alarming to everyone.
Causes of Type 2 Diabetes in Children
Diabetes is short for diabetes mellitus, which is a group of diseases related to your body’s glucose levels. Glucose is the source of energy for your cells. Blood glucose is sometimes referred to as blood sugar. Diabetes is an excess of glucose.
Type 2 diabetes, in particular, occurs when either the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or the body becomes resistant to it.
How Type 2 Diabetes Develops
It is important to understand how glucose gets from our food into our cells in order to understand why type 2 diabetes is increasing in children.
In type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, cells become resistant to insulin. The pancreas secretes insulin into the bloodstream as you eat. Insulin makes the cells absorb the glucose from the food. As your blood sugar levels drop, the pancreas decreases insulin production. When you go a long time without eating, the liver will release stored glucose into your blood. When the cells become resistant to insulin, kid's bodies can't properly process glucose and sugar. Type II diabetes develops due to this problem with insulin.
What Can Be Done
The cost of diabetes for the US runs about 100 billion a year. Schools, communities, and individuals need to take action.
Schools can help by not cutting physical education classes. They can also stop being so team sports oriented, and include additional activities for maintaining health that can be taken into adulthood, like jogging, working out, etc. Of course, they can educate children and parents about proper nutrition and the risks of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. Cafeterias need to serve more nutritious foods, since many children eat both breakfast and lunch there.
The government can help out with the education aspect. Many people are not aware that a cute, chubby kid could face severe problems. The Food Stamp program could also be revised to only allow nutritional foods and no snacks or soft drinks.