Children

The IDF Diabetes Atlas, 5th edition, estimates that worldwide 495,100 children below 15 years of age are living with diabetes. Added to this number would be as many or more young people aged between 15 and 25 years. Together with adults with type 1 diabetes, these 1 million plus children and young people face the challenge of living with a complex, life-threatening chronic disease, but in widely different circumstances.

Childhood obesity is a worsening social emergency. It affects even the youngest children and has become a major issue in schools throughout the developed world and beyond. In Italy, recent data from the Ministry of Health show that more than 1 million children, a quarter of all young people between 6 and 11 years old, are overweight; 12% of the child population is obese. In southern regions, the situation has reached staggering proportions: half of all children are overweight or obese. In fact, Italy is now third in the world for childhood obesity – behind the USA and Portugal.

An unhealthy diet is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, so what can we do to help people eat healthily? An important step is to ensure that children are encouraged to eat healthy food, and are not subjected to marketing that promotes energy-dense food that is high in fat, sugar and salt. Justin Macmullan looks at profit-driven but potentially dangerous marketing practices, and calls for an international code of practice to prevent the children of today from becoming the junk-food generation of tomorrow.

IDF is an organization of associations in over 160 countries around the world. As such, it is organized from the ground up. Local associations deliver the programmes of the Federation. While offering counsel and advice as well as access to best practices, IDF seeks to empower the local association. Rotary International is a similar organization. The world’s largest and oldest service club, it has over 1.2 million members in more than 33,000 clubs in 160 countries.