As the number of children and teenagers being treated for Type 2 diabetes has risen 14%, the Local Government Association (LGA) has described the situation as a “hugely disturbing trend”.

Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board says “this is an important reminder of one of the biggest public health challenges the country faces”, adding that it “emphasises the urgency of stepping up efforts to tackle child obesity, with the devastating consequences already being seen at an early age.”

 

Figures from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for 2015/16 show that 621 children and young people under the age of 25 received care for Type 2 diabetes from Paediatric Diabetes Units in England and Wales. 78.5% of the children in these cases were also obese, and 15 were just 5 to 9 years old. This is an increase of 76 children from the previous year.

 

Furthermore, these are only the figures for those treated in paediatric practice, and do not include primary care, suggesting that the actual number of young people with Type 2 diabetes may be even higher.

 

“The LGA is calling on the Government to, as a minimum, reverse the cuts to councils’ public health budgets of £531 million – a reduction of nearly 10% over a five-year period” says Seccombe, who claims “this has impaired the councils’ ability to tackle childhood obesity and prevent associated conditions such as Type 2 diabetes from developing in the first place.

 

Seccombe also believes more needs to be done to reach out to black, Asian and minority ethnic groups (BAME), as “nearly half of those reviving care for the condition from Paediatric Diabtes Units were black or Asian.”

 

Dr Justin Warner, clinical lead for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s National Paediatric Diabetes Audit confirmed that children and young people from BAME groups are at higher risk of developing the condition. He added that more girls than boys are being diagnosed, and that living in socially deprived areas increases a young person’s risk of both obesity and developing Type 2 diabetes.

 

Warner concluded, “Obesity is a major public health threat and there needs to be action at all levels to reverse the trend. The good news is, it’s largely preventable.”