Type 2 diabetes is a family disease. Other family members may already have diabetes or may be at risk of developing it. For this reason, it’s important for everyone in the family to learn about diabetes and start adopting a healthy lifestyle. This will support your child or teen with diabetes, and it will lower the chances that any of your other children will get it.
Managing type 2 diabetes calls for living a healthy lifestyle. This can help delay or even prevent diabetes-related complications. Here are some of the things your family can do to stay healthy:
- Follow a balanced meal plan.
- Be physically active.
- Keep weight in a healthy range.
- Keep blood glucose levels in the target range.
- Keep blood pressure close to the target level.
- Take any necessary medicines as directed.
- Manage stress.
- Don’t smoke.
- Take care of your feet.
- Keep in touch with your doctor or diabetes team.
All this may seem like a lot of work, but your child and family are not alone: your diabetes health care team can help. Your team may also include a dietitian, a diabetes educator, a pharmacist, a social worker, a psychologist, a foot care specialist, an endocrinologist, and an ophthalmologist (eye doctor) or optometrist (eye specialist). These people are all there to provide the information and support to your child or teen.
Healthy eating
People with diabetes have the same nutritional needs as everyone else. However, nutrition is also very important for diabetes control. Eating a well-balanced diet can help control your child or teen’s blood glucose level and keep it as close to normal as possible. Sometimes a proper diet alone can be enough to control blood glucose levels. Healthy eating can also help him feel better, stay healthy longer, and reduce the risk of complications.
Talk to your dietitian
If you have a dietitian as part of your health care team, she can help you design a personalized meal plan that suits your family’s lifestyle. It may include foods from your culture, and some of your child or teen’s favourite foods. She can also help you figure out how much your child should eat and how often.
Here are some tips for healthy eating for everyone:
- Eat 3 regular meals each day. Eating regularly helps the body keep up stable blood glucose levels. If your child or teen is taking diabetes medications, she may also need to eat a bedtime snack.
- Include a variety of foods at each meal: vegetables and fruit, meats or alternatives, and whole-grain breads and cereals.
- Try choosing whole fruit instead of fruit juice.
- Sugars and sweets (for example, pop, desserts, jam, and candy) will quickly raise blood sugar. Your pancreas will have trouble keeping up. Ask your dietitian for suggestions for "special occasion" foods.
- Reducing high-fat foods such as chips and other fried foods will help you keep your weight and your heart healthy.
- Take it easy on the salt.
- Try eating more foods that are high in fibre. High-fibre food can help you feel full longer, and may help lower blood glucose and cholesterol.
- Drink water when you are thirsty. Regular pop and fruit juice are very high in sugar, and can raise the blood glucose. They are also high in calories and may cause unwanted weight gain.
Alcohol
The legal drinking age in Ontario is 19 years old. It differs from province to province.
Discuss drinking moderate amounts of alcohol (1 or 2 drinks a day) with the health care team. If your teen chooses to drink alcohol, he should not drink on an empty stomach. He should sip the drink slowly because alcohol can cause hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels).
Exercise
One of the best things your child can do to stay healthy is stay active. Exercise is an important part of managing type 2 diabetes. Your child or teen should choose activities he likes to do, such as swimming, playing a sport, or riding his bicycle. Picking activities that involve friends or other family members, such as going for walks, can help make the exercise fun. Staying active can:
- help your child feel better
- make the heart, lungs, and muscles stronger
- lower blood glucose levels
- lower blood pressure levels
- help your child lose weight and keep it off
- help deal with stress
If your child is taking insulin or other medicines, talk to the diabetes team about how to prevent low blood glucose. Your child may need to adjust the insulin dose to avoid low blood sugar. Also, your child should test his blood sugar before and after exercising.
If your child starts to have symptoms of low blood sugar, such as feeling light-headed, shaky, irritable, hungry, or weak, he needs to test again. If the blood sugar is under 4, he should take 4 to 6 ounces of juice and retest in 10 to 15 minutes. He may be very hungry. Help him resist the temptation to overeat at this time.
Your child should keep some form of sugar and extra food on hand while exercising to treat low blood sugar. It’s also a good idea to wear MedicAlert identification while exercising.
Weight loss
If your child or teen is overweight, weight loss is perhaps the most important part of managing the diabetes. This can be hard, but your diabetes health care team can help you and your child work out a meal and exercise plan, and give lots of support. Staying at a healthy body weight will help lower blood glucose and blood pressure levels. This will help delay or prevent the complications of diabetes.
Avoid fad diets. Most of them don’t work and some are even dangerous. There are no short cuts to losing weight and keeping it off. Your child must burn more calories than he consumes.
Teenagers are still growing and have high nutritional needs. The key is to eat at regular meal times, keep only healthy foods in the house, and cut out the empty calories, such as soft drinks and fried foods.