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Four years ago, Jennifer was on the verge of accepting that
she would be overweight forever.
Then, the Houston teen developed a serious health problem that
turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She was diagnosed with
Type 2 diabetes and sent to Texas Children’s Hospital for
treatment.
“I just thought I was tired because I was heavy,” said Jennifer,
who recently graduated from high school and looks forward to a
bright future. “I thought maybe I would always be heavy because
people in my family are heavy.”
“When Jennifer first came to us, she was about 50 pounds heavier
than she is now,” said Dr. Siripoom McKay, a Texas Children’s
endocrinologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor
College of Medicine. “She also had diabetes. Her glucose, or blood
sugar, was very high — high enough that we put her on medicine to
control her blood sugar and get it in the normal range.”
Until recently, Type 2 diabetes rarely was seen in children and
usually affected only adults who had become overweight over
several decades. Today, more children are being diagnosed with the
disease at a much earlier age. In fact, so many children have Type
2 diabetes that medical experts and government officials are
calling obesity an epidemic.
“Epidemic doesn’t even characterize it enough,” said Susan Combs,
Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, who is speaking out about the
problem of children being overweight. “The Centers for Disease
Control two years ago said that, of all children born in the
United States, one third would get Type 2 diabetes and one half of
Hispanics would if we didn’t change what we were doing. In
Houston, we’re looking at nearly 55,000 children getting Type 2
diabetes.”
Dr. William Klish, a Texas Children’s
gastroenterologist and
professor of pediatric gastroenterology at Baylor College of
Medicine, believes that childhood obesity is the most important
public health dilemma facing America today.
“Data shows that a child under age 14 who develops Type 2 diabetes
loses as much as 27 years from his or her life span,” said Klish,
who is helping to develop the Center of Excellence for Childhood
Obesity.
"The good news is that, healthy eating and exercise habits can
help control Type 2 diabetes,” Dr. McKay said. “In Jennifer’s
case, the team at Texas Children’s put her on a healthy diet plan
and helped her find fun ways to exercise.”
Jennifer’s lifestyle changes were part of a research program
called the
TODAY study
or Treatment Options for Type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and
Children.
“When I started losing weight, I felt better and that made me want
to keep on doing it,” Jennifer said. “I learned that I don’t have
to just run or walk. I can dance, swim or do whatever exercise I
like — as long as I do it for a long enough period of time.”
“We can’t treat this problem with just the doctor seeing the
patient every three months or so,” Dr. McKay said. “The treatment
is a daily treatment and not just with medicine.”
Making positive lifestyle changes is important and involves help
from the family as well as the patient and doctor.
Parents must look at changes they can make in their lifestyle that
can improve their child’s health, such as eating more fresh fruit
and vegetables, cutting back on sugar and fat, and enjoying daily
walks or other types of exercise. Doing this together as a family
can make all the difference, McKay said.
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