Fast Food As A Reason Of Type 2 Diabetes
“Diabetes is a chronic, debilitating and costly disease and currently there are 387 million people living with diabetes worldwide. By 2035, the number will rise to 592 million” said by Dr. Samad Shera. According Dr. Shera’s data, there is no doubt that diabetes has been a very serious social problem. With the improvement of people’s living standard, the morbidity of diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, increase rapidly recently. Besides, the chronic complication of diabetes brings heavy burdens to patient and their family because of the high cost of curing this disease, which then has an adverse effect on the development of society. There are verities of reasons that can increase the risk of getting diabetes, and fast food, which has too much saturated fat and calorie, plays the main role in raising the risk of having type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes has been affect people’s lives since thousand years ago. According to The National Medical Journal of India, people during that period call it “sweet urine disease”. Diabetes is incurable during that period and a lot of people died because of this disease. Until 1910 Edward Albert Sharpey-Shafer, a professor in the American Diabetes Association (ADA), published a report about the reasons of diabetes, people had no idea about this disease. Sharpey-Shafer gives society a general knowledge about diabetes, which is “sugar cannot break down in the body and the excess sugar ends up in the urine”. And too much saturated fat and calorie in food is the primary reason for sugar ending up in urine.
First of all, eating too much fast food can cause childhood obesity and then lead to children type 2 diabetes. There is an increasing number of children who have childhood obesity because of eating too much fast food and “with the global epidemic of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes has increased in children since 1985” said by Dean, Heather J. Besides, according to Heather J’s research, the widespread of childhood obesity is because of the development of society which makes fast food more easy to access. Moreover, children will see hundreds of fast food advertisement every year according to Figure 1 form Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy. It shows that kids from 6-11 years old will see totally about 643 advertisements from the main fast food.
And kids from 2-5 will watch about 410 advertisements per year. These advertisements will urge children eat more fast food. And according to Child Health Alter’s research that “that the more people ate fast food, the more their body weight increased. Compared to those who visited fast-food restaurants less than once a week, people who ate fast food more than twice a week over the 15-year study period gained an extra 10 pounds, and they also developed early signs of diabetes which may lead to obesity or even type 2 diabetes”. Besides, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) did a research about the percentage of children who are overweight or obesity from 1995 to 2003. It shows that there are 17% more children who are overweight or obesity in 2003 than in 1995. In NHANES’s report, they hold the opinion that more and more consumption of fast food is the main reason of that. What is more, “overweight and obesity are risk factors for type 2 diabetes” said by Sonia Caprio who is a professor in Yale University in school of medicine. There is no doubt that children who eat more fast food will have a high possibility of getting type 2 diabetes.
Secondly, less education of fast food can lead to type 2 diabetes is another reason that children eat too much fast food. “The lack of effective community-based programs is a barrier to reducing obesity prevalence and diabetes risk in children” said by Hingle, Melanie D and Turner, Tami in their research. Their research shows that the majority of families do not know what type 2 diabetes is or fast food will increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. As a result, in the National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2014, it shows 27.5% of children type 2 diabetes were undiagnosed because of lacking knowledge of type 2 diabetes. The report also shows that there is not enough education, for example the reasons and clinical feature of diabetes, about type 2 diabetes for children. And the books about children type 2 diabetes are not 100% correct according to Hingle, Melanie D and Turner, Tami’s research.
However, in “Interpretation of AAP Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Children and Adolescents”, it shows that the majority medicine for curing type 2 diabetes cannot be used for people who are under 18 because of some safety issues. The remedy of children’s type 2 diabetes is very hard. In addition, “The condition (type 2 diabetes) can affect nearly every major organ in your child's body” Mayo Clinic Staff states that in their blog. The complication of type 2 diabetes in Figure 2, such as diabetic retinopathy, kidney disease and diabetic neuropathy, will affect and bring a lot of in convenience to children’s lives. Furthermore, children who eat more fast food do not do as well as children who eat less fast food in math, science and readings. "High levels of fast food consumption were predictive of lower growth in all three academic subjects," Purtell told The Huffington Post.
To sum up, with the rapid economic and social development, fast food can be easier to be approached by children, and eating too much fast food will affect their study in school and lead to overweight and obesity and then increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
In conclusion, fast food plays a significant role in leading to children type 2 diabetes. Because of many advertisements be seen every day and less knowledge about diabetes, the number of children who have type 2 diabetes or have potential risk of getting type 2 diabetes is increasing.
