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Child Obesity and Diabetes
It has been a long established fact that obesity raises the risk of developing many diseases. The excessive amount of body weight was once linked to a person’s lifestyle. However today it has significant genetic implications too.
With the rising cases of child obesity, the health of children has become a major cause of concern world over. Child obesity causes a myriad of diseases in our young ones and therefore needs to be checked. A recent report has shown that about a fifth of all children in America are obese. Similar trends are being observed all over the world.
In the last three decades, the number of obese children has grown more than three times. With this rising incidence, child obesity and diabetes have almost become synonymous. Out of all the diseases that child obesity is associated with, diabetes has come up as one that is especially dangerous. It has therefore become imperative that the problem of child obesity and diabetes be addressed as soon as possible.
There was a time when diabetes was associated only with adults. However, the number of children suffering from type 2 diabetes has increased manifold over the last couple of years. A recent study suggests that in the year 2000, every third child born develops type 2 diabetes. This statistic is as shocking as it is true.
Child obesity and diabetes are intricately interlinked. Today because of obesity, children are more prone to develop double diabetes in which children develop type 1 diabetes and with that also start to develop resistance to insulin. Obese children are at a five times greater risk of developing diabetes.
The excess of fat in a person makes it harder for the body to utilize insulin. This may eventually lead to the slow deterioration of the pancreas. Children, who develop diabetes in their childhood, have to live with this disorder for a longer period of time and therefore become susceptible to further complications of the disease. Almost all of the organs are at an increased risk of damage due to the complications of long term diabetes. There are some cases in which some teenagers have developed serious conditions that were once considered the long term complications of the disease.
The rising incidences of obesity related diseases in children is alarming not only due to the rising cost of health care and the expenses incurred, but also because this poses a serious cost to human life.
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