School kids to get kits to detect diabetes early

This article was published in Times of India on Nov 12, 2008
After three months of falling ill constantly, a CBSE school student recently found that her blood sugar has caught up to 550

“The diagnosis that she was diabetic was made after three months. This goes to show that awareness about diabetes is very low in school. We want to try and turn this situation around,” said Dr Vijay Viswanathan, Head, MV hospital for Diabetes and Diabetes research centre, at the launch of ‘Slim and Fit’ program for students.

“Under this initiative, we will be distributing small kits worth Rs 1,500 to the 112 CBSE schools and 12 Kendriya Vidyalayas. Each kit will contain a glucometer and several educational charts explaining the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes and illustrating a food pyramid. We also have material to help teacher’s measure obesity in children. We will train school authorities on how they can use these kits,” he added.

The diabetologist cited a study the centre conducted among school students in the city from October 2007 to March 2008, which measured trends for obesity among students from lower socio-economical schools (LSES) to higher socio-economical schools (HSES). “Around 300 students between 8 and 18 years of age were studied from LSES and HSES. It was found that 22% of girls from HSES were overweighed when compared to 9% from those of LSES. Similarly for boys it was found to be 13% and 7% respectively. On analyzing the reason for obesity among children, we found it was entirely due to lifestyle changes. Students from HSES engaged in less physical activities and watched TV for more time than those from LSES,” he said.

Referring to the success of a similar program in Singapore three years ago, Dr Viswanathan said it had effected changes in the school curriculum, canteen policies and infrastructure. School authorities choose to install drinking water taps all over the school to discourage students from drinking fizzy soft drinks, he added.

“We are concerned about the health of our students and have issued circulars to CBSE schools requesting that they substitute junk food in canteens with healthy alternatives. In fact, we hope that the sahodaya cluster (group of schools in different regions of the city) will take up the issue at their meetings,” said S Nagaraju , regional director, CBSE.

Explaining the link between blood sugar and diabetes, Shreya Ganguly, a student of class XI at St John’s secondary school, Mandaveli, said “We prepared for the event with the help of information from internet. Together with the talks conducted here, we do have a greater awareness about the importance of cutting down junk foods.”

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