Type 2 Diabetes Doubles Among U.S. Children
November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Sayantani DasGupta — a physician, author and mother — writes here about the rising incidence of type 2 diabetes in children.
Our children are dying.
Around the world, our children are dying from malnutrition and diarrhea, from a lack of clean water, from a lack of proper food and hygiene. They are dying from violence, from wars, from accidents, from injury and abuse at the hands of those who are meant to love them.
And in this country, yet another cause, slower but just as deadly. Our children are dying from diseases caused by obesity. In a cross-sectional study of ambulatory prescription claims from a sample of over 3.5 million commercially insured American children that was published in the Nov 5, 2008 issue of Pediatrics, Cox et al. found that the prevalence rate for type 2 antidiabetic agents doubled during the three year study period. Although other therapy classes, including asthma, ADHD and antihyperlipidemic medications also showed significant increases, the doubling of type 2 diabetes medications among our nation’s children cannot be ignored.
Type 2 diabetes was once called ‘adult type’ diabetes due to its strong association with lifestyle risk factors that manifested in adulthood, primarily, obesity. With the rise of childhood obesity comes a concomitant rise in diseases associated with obesity, including type 2 diabetes.
It’s easy, of course, to blame video games and computers, to blame junk food and lazy children. But childhood obesity is a social disease as much as it is an individual one. It is a disease of poverty, of unsafe neighborhoods where children must stay indoors and public schools without gym classes or appropriate sports programs. Childhood obesity is a disease of poorly stocked inner city grocery stores, and an economic system that prices fresh fruits and vegetables more than preservative laden goods in cans. Childhood obesity is a disease of parents who work 2 jobs to make ends meet and don’t have time to put a cooked meal on the table, it is a disease of a failed healthcare system that medicates problems rather than prevents them. Childhood obesity is a disease of social catastrophe as much as it is a disease of national privilege.
And so, as I consider the upcoming election, and the new beginning I hope this country is about to take, I realize that we are struggling for no less than the safety of our children. A healthy nation and healthy planet depend on safe water and healthy food in both Delhi and Detroit, safe streets in both Baghdad and the Bronx, healthy homes, schools, and bodies for the children around the corner and for the children around the world.
But without a NASDAQ index of plummeting pediatric health, without a ticker tape newsreel to remind us of this catastrophic state, without headlines and blog posts, and rallies and outcries, there will be no bailout on the horizon for our children.
Our children are dying, but is anyone listening?
By: Intent
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