WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: November is American Diabetes Month

At the conclusion of a ‘Healthy Cooking and Healthy Diabetes’ class at a senior center, I served the grilled pepper and mushroom quesadillas I prepared to illustrate the lesson about dietary fiber.  After everyone finished eating, one woman lingered.  She approached me and said she wanted to thank me for the class lesson.  Her husband was several steps behind her.  She gave me a hug and quietly whispered in my ear so her husband could not hear, “You are the answer to my prayers.  My husband has diabetes and I’ve been so worried about him.  You have just taught me how I can help him.  Thank you.”

     --excerpt from Healthy Living with Diabetes: One Small Step at a Time by Nancy Heinrich

Teaching adults how to control and reverse diabetes is very important to me. Teaching kids and parents how to prevent diabetes matters even more because one in six kids in America is obese.

November is American Diabetes Month and an opportunity to talk about what diabetes is (too much sugar in the blood), why people get it (not enough exercise, not eating enough dietary fiber, being overweight or obese, eating too much sugar and too many processed foods, and eating too much foods) and how to prevent it (eat more fiber, eat mainly fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, and exercise every day). 

People with diabetes are told by their doctors, “Take a pill.”  What about the kids being diagnosed with diabetes because they have been raised on a steady diet of Honey Buns, Pop Tarts, Lunchables, and Coca Cola and now are overweight?  Do we really want to put kids who are obese on diabetes medications where the main side effect is weight gain?  Or should we learn how to give our kids real food instead of highly processed food?  

For kids at risk of diabetes because of poor eating habits, it is essential that parents increase their awareness of why it is important to prevent diabetes.  When kids develop type 2 diabetes, they are at risk of developing complications such as neuropathy, eye problems including blindness, kidney problems, a 2-4 times increased risk for heart attack or stroke, amputations, and sexual problems.  When a teenager is diagnosed with diabetes, they can expect to have about a shorter lifespan than expected if they did not have diabetes by at least 15 years. 

 

Preventing diabetes is a much bigger bang for the buck than treating diabetes.  How much does it does to amputate a foot?  A lot more than the cost of an organic apple.  

Kids needs fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.  Real food.  

Soda and honey buns are not real food.  Apples are.

 

American Diabetes Month is about raising our awareness of what diabetes is, what the complications of diabetes are, and why we need to be hypervigilant about preventing obesity and diabetes in America's children. 

Here are 6 Healthy Eating Tips for Kids (and anyone else who does not want to get diabetes): 

1. Drink water, not soda.
2. Eat fruit instead of drinking fruit juice.
3. Keep a bowl of fresh fruit on the kitchen table for afternoon snacks. 
4. Eat breads and pasta that meet “The Nancy Rule” (first ingredient includes the word “whole” and bread or pasta has 4 or grams of dietary fiber/serving).
5. Stop buying foods and drinks with high fructose corn syrup.
6. Make at least half of the grains you eat whole grains.  “Enriched wheat” is not a whole grain. 

Please pass the whole grain tortillas.

With love and gratitude,

Nancy L Heinrich, MPH

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.