Is Inactivity Causing Diabetes Among Kids?

Suspecting that inactivity is to blame for the skyrocketing rate of diabetes among children, a Georgia researcher plans to monitor and test third graders to find out for sure.

"Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes because kids didn't get it," says Dr. Catherine Davis, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia. "Now, kids are getting it in record numbers."

In fact, 10 times more kids have diabetes today than in 1990, she says.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body can't regulate blood glucose levels. Complications, which usually occur 20 years after diagnosis, affect many organs and can lead to heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure, pregnancy complications, blindness and poor blood circulation, which can require limb amputation.

In August, Davis will begin charting and testing 240 overweight third graders. For four months, one group will do 40 minutes of aerobic exercise daily, a second group will do 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, and a third group will not take part in the exercise. She plans to continue with different groups of children for three years, measuring the children's body composition and glucose tolerance before and after the exercise program.

Although high-fat diets probably contribute to the problem of overweight and diabetic kids, Davis says, a sedentary lifestyle may have more to do with it. People ate high-fat diets 100 years ago, she notes, but they had active lifestyles. Kids today sit in front of televisions and computers, rarely walk anywhere, and have fewer physical education classes at schools because of funding cutbacks.

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