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Tips to Help Prevent Type 2 Diabetes from Occurring in Children

Most of the time when people think of type 2 diabetes mellitus you think of the words, “fat” and “forty,” because those two words might fit people with type 2 diabetes most of the time. Not so, anymore. Nowadays, in the era of video games, children have become sedentary. They often eat junk foods and a lot of it whenever they get the chance. Sadly, twenty percent of the people with diabetes mellitus type 2 are children. The following tips will help you recognize the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in children. You will also learn how to possibly stop diabetes type 2 in children before much damage is done.

The symptoms of diabetes mellitus type 2 in children is the same as it is for adults. If your child is obese, he/she has a chance of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus. Kids who are most at risk of developing diabetes type 2 are those who are at least 10 years old and are very overweight for their age. Children most at risk of developing this type of diabetes mellitus are those with a BMI (body mass index) that is in the 85th to 95th percentile range compared to other children of the same age. If you want to find out if your child is at risk for diabetes type 2, you can find BMI calculators online. If your child is overweight, you may want to consult with your child’s pediatrician.

If the parents have diabetes type 2 and are overweight, there is a good chance at least one of the children of that family will also be overweight and at risk for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus. The way to prevent your child from becoming diabetic is to make and enforce some lifestyle changes in your family, not just in your child’s life. Your family will need to come to terms with eating healthy and watch portion sizes. Junk food will need to be avoided, and fruit snacks given instead. It will take more than a trip to the pediatrician to prevent your child from becoming diabetic. You will need to talk to the friends and families your child associates with, so that they will not feed your child foods that will induce weight gain. Nowadays schools are becoming healthier places, because the soda machines have been taken out, and healthier juices and waters are provided. In many cases, a piece of whole fruit is much healthier than juices, because many juices are mostly sugar. You will also need to educate your son or daughter about these lifestyle changes and how these changes will improve his/her life.

As parents, we need to admit when our children are overweight or obese. Obesity is what it is, and it won’t help your child if you think of him/her as big boned, or that he/she just has baby fat. Parents need to get on board with recognizing a potential problem before it becomes a big problem. Feeding your child soda pop and gooey pizza, or chips and dip several times a week will only propel your child ever closer to being overweight, obese, or super obese. Being a parent means we have to say “no” to some things that our children want. When we say “no” to junk food, we need to educate our children about the serious risks of developing diabetes type 2. We also need to educate our children about how diabetes often has other serious medical conditions that appear due to the complications associated with weight and diabetes.

It’s easier to start children on a healthy diet and lifestyle almost from birth. If junk foods are not a common commodity in your house, your child will have less access to it. If you limit TV and video games each day and find activities for your children to do that requires them to get off the couch, they are much more likely to be of normal weight, and not at risk for type 2 diabetes.

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