Diabetes
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies. When you have diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use its own insulin as well as it should. This causes sugar to build up in your blood.
Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.
What about pre-diabetes?
A person with pre-diabetes has a blood sugar that is higher than normal, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. Pre-diabetes is extremely common, 86 million American adults (1 out of 3) have it. People with pre-diabetes have a 15-30% chance of developing diabetes within 5 years, so reversing this disease is important. Research shows that losing 5-7% of your weight has a positive impact on reversing pre-diabetes. By eating healthy and staying active (exercise 150 minutes or more per week) you can reduce your risk of developing diabetes by 50%.
To find out your risk of having pre-diabetes, watch this short video which will help you calculate if you are high risk and should discuss pre-diabetes with your doctor:
For more information, see the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse publication, Your Guide to Diabetes: Type 1 and Type 2
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You can also visit the American Diabetes Association website for diabetes and pre-diabetes information, nutrition and exercise tips, and how to lower your risk for developing diabetes.
Information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Obesity
Overweight and obesity are both labels for ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height. The terms also identify ranges of weight that have been shown to increase the likelihood of certain diseases and other health problems.
For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by using weight and height to calculate a number called the “body mass index” (BMI). BMI is used because, for most people, it correlates with their amount of body fat.
- An adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight.
- An adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.
You can calculate your BMI using this calculator provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you are overweight or obese and need to make a lifestyle change, please visit these sites for information and helpful tools:
Tips for Parents – Ideas to help your child maintain a healthy weight
“Everybody Walk” — the movement to get America walking
Content provided by the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov)