Healthy diet and adequate exercise are important in preventing Type II diabetes in childhood as well as obesity. Diabetes is a metabolic disease in which the body cannot properly metabolize (break down) the sugars from food. Because the body cannot metabolize sugars, the sugars accumulate in the bloodstream instead and ultimately stress children’s kidneys, heart, circulatory system, and eyes. Insulin, which is created in the pancreas, is the chemical that breaks down breaks down blood sugar.
In Type II diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin to deal with all the sugars coming into the body. This medical diagnosis used to be called “adult-onset diabetes” because the disorder primarily affected adults with poor eating and activity habits. Today, however, however, this illness is now diagnosed in America’s children far more than in adults. It is now referred to as “Type II diabetes”, to reflect this shift in prevalence.