Dealing With a Diabetic Kid

Diabetes is a disease that can affect the whole family’s life. It is especially unpleasant when a kid has it, and parents need to think about the food to give to him or her. 

Nutritious food has a high impact crucial to the development of a diabetic kid. Diabetes still is mysterious, and a lot of new research has also been made related to diabetic kids.

According to the Oxford dictionary, diabetes is a disease that influences the body’s ability to “respond to the hormone; insulin is impaired.” That leads to “abnormal metabolism of carbohydrates and elevated levels of glucose in the blood.” There are two types of diabetes. In type 1, there is a lack of cells that would produce insulin, but with type 2 diabetes body fails to respond to insulin, and the pancreas doesn’t provide enough insulin. Type 2 diabetes is more common and can also develop later in life. Insulin’s primary purpose is to help to get glucose into cells from which then the body gets energy.

Type one diabetes is less common, but it develops much faster. Usually, the first symptoms have increased the need to go to the toilet and thirst. Thirst comes from the fact that in blood, is higher sugar level and fluid is taken out from it. Kids also tend to have almost uncontrollable eating. The reason for this is the fact that organs and tissues are now “energy-depleted.” Although there are more eating involved, a kid is more likely to lose some weight. It is mainly due to the loss of energy supplies that also makes tissues shrink. The easily remarkable fact is also the fact that a kid often feels tired. Furthermore, vision might become blurred because of focusing problems. It is because the fluid is extracted from the lenses.

In type two diabetes cases, the symptoms are the same as already mentioned before, but there are also some additional ones. One of the signs is sores that heal slowly and frequent infections due to hardness to resist them. Visually noticeable can also be areas of darkened skin. A more medical term for that is acanthosis nigricans. It comes from the insulin resistance problem. High importance is the race the kid has as well as his weight. 

An overweight kid is more likely to develop this kind of diabetes. The leading causes for that are not enough activity as well as unhealthy food or not the right use of it. That’s why it is essential to take a look at the food and whether it is nutritious enough.

Kids with diabetes require daily sugar level monitoring as well as delivery of enough food that is healthy. Other failures without treating diabetes the way it should are blindness, kidney failure, and heart disease, indicating its seriousness. Dietitians can be a good help in creating a unique meal plan. A few steps can be followed. One of them is to avoid drinking soda, sports drinks, and juices. Water is the healthiest drink to use (6-8 glasses per day). There are also special diet drinks like diet soda and even diet root beer. Meal organization is very important to balance a kid’s main meal and snacks.

The best way is to put food on the plate before sitting on the table, thus avoiding taking a more substantial portion. If a kid is hungry between the meals, better is to find some healthy snacks, which is not such an easy job. The kid should also avoid eating late at night. Diabetes specialists will have already made a plan for how many calories a kid should take. Calories are three types of food: carbohydrates (carbs), fat, and protein. Carbs include a lot of different food like bread, pasta, starchy vegetables, rice, ice-cream, etc.

American Diabetes Association (ADA) suggests using “oatmeal or bran cereals with four or more grams of fiber per serving,” serving beans 2-3 times per week, five servings of fruits and vegetables every week.

Fat is also essential as one of their functions is to help to carry vitamins to the cells, but at the same time, it is worth remembering that they can also lead to extra fat. ADA suggests using lower-fat foods, which can be even special butter, oils, margarine, and other products. ADA also recommends their healthy plate, including kids. Half of the plate should be non-starchy vegetables, ¼ for protein and other ¼ for grains and starchy vegetables.

Another important fact is that a plate shouldn’t be deeper than 1 inch. Importance is also how fast a kid eats the meal. It is important to eat slowly, it takes around 20 minutes until the brain gets a signal from the stomach that it is full. In case a kid still doesn’t feel full, you can give him additional non-starchy vegetables and some more water. If there are more than 4 hours between the meals, you can also give a kid some healthy snacks. ADA suggested ideas are 3 cups of popcorn (no butter), 8 oz nonfat yogurt, one fresh fruit, 2 slices of whole-grain bread with a tablespoon of jelly, 15 grapes, half a can of low-fat soup.

There are a lot of ways how to eat healthier and more nutritious. Life of diabetic children can get more easier and manageable with the right eating and medical supplement to keep living with this incurable disease. American Diabetes Association, the same as other related associations, have different tips for that same as special doctors can help parents as well as kids themselves.

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REFERENCE:

[1] Oxford Dictionary. Accessed from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/diabetesrel=” nofollow”

[2] Type 1 diabetes in children. Accessed from: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-1-diabetes-in-children/basics/symptoms/con-20029197rel=” nofollow”

[3] Type 2 diabetes in children. Accessed from: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-2-diabetes-in-children/basics/symptoms/con-20030124

[4] American Diabetes Association. Accessed from: http://main.diabetes.org/dorg/PDFs/Type-2-Diabetes-in-Youth/Type-2-Diabetes-in-Youth_14-18.pdfrel=” nofollow”