MARYSVILLE – When asked if they knew someone with diabetes, about three-quarters of the students in a fifth-grade class at Quil Ceda Elementary School raised their hands.
Ten-year-old Courtney Karp was one of those students. She said her grandmother and eight cousins have diabetes.
After watching her grandmother struggle with the disease, “I’m really scared,” she said. “I don’t want that to happen to me.”
Irene Takeshita and her husband, Carl Takeshita, spoke on Monday to Courtney and the other 21 students in her classroom to try to do just that: Prevent diabetes from happening to them.
The retired educators first developed a program in their native Hawaii, aimed at reaching students in elementary school, where they feel they can have the biggest impact on changing kids’ behaviors.
Since launching the program in 1999, they’ve presented their diabetes-fighting message there to 3,000 students and 2,000 parents.
The Takeshitas were invited to the Quil Ceda and Tulalip elementary schools this week to help spread the prevention message. It is one of five such pilot projects now under way in the West, sponsored by the American Diabetes Association. The other programs are in San Diego, Phoenix, Denver and Portland.
“We’re trying to target high-risk communities,” said Majken Mechling, executive director of the group’s Hawaii organization.
That’s one of the reasons the two Marysville schools were picked for the project, she said. Minorities, such as American Indians, Hispanics, blacks and Asians, have higher rates of diabetes.
At Quil Ceda Elementary School, 42 percent of the 335 students are American Indian. That number rises to 70 percent of the 363 students at Tulalip Elementary School.
“People point out the racial differences (with diabetes), but the rate of growth is increasing in everybody,” said Jennifer Okemah, a diabetes program coordinator for the Tulalip Health Clinic.
Nationally, one in three children born in 2000 will get diabetes at some point in their lives, unless they change their eating habits and become more active, federal health officials warn.
Being overweight is one factor that increases the risk of getting type 2 diabetes, the disease’s most common form. One in six overweight youths between the ages of 12 and 19 have prediabetes, a condition that can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Even if someone is at risk of getting diabetes, lifestyle changes can overcome hereditary risk, or a family history of the disease, Okemah said. Making small changes, such as losing 10 to 15 pounds, can make a difference, she said, preventing or delaying the disease’s onset.
“That’s what we want to teach the kids,” Okemah said. “You don’t have to have diabetes.”
The Takeshitas spent an hour in several fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms Monday hammering home that point. They led the children in drills that had them name the risk factors for diabetes, such as being overweight, not getting enough exercise, eating too much fatty food and not eating enough fruits and vegetables.
Mekalani Echevarria, 10, said her grandmother, who has diabetes, has told her that she should get a lot of exercise, “make sure you eat healthy foods and make sure you just don’t sit” to try to prevent it.
Ten-year-old Katie Fitch said that her whole school in another school district she attended was tested for the disease.
“They had to get the finger prick,” she said. “One kid had it.”
She said she’s not sure if she’s at risk for the disease, but “my mom told me to exercise more.”
“You’re so important to us,” Irene Takeshita told the students. “We want to make sure you stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.”
About diabetes
Diabetes, which has no cure, is the fifth-deadliest disease in the United States.
Diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death. But people with diabetes can take steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, nervous system damage and amputations.
While an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed, another 6.2 million people dont know they have the disease. In 2005, 1.5 million new cases of diabetes were diagnosed in people age 20 or older.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for at least 90 percent of all diagnosed diabetes cases. Type 2 diabetes is associated with older age, obesity, a family history of the disease and physical inactivity. Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, Asian-Americans, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are at particularly high risk for type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes, previously called juvenile diabetes, develops when the bodys immune system destroys pancreatic cells that make insulin, which regulates blood glucose. To survive, people with type 1 diabetes must take insulin, either by injection or by a pump. Type 1 diabetes accounts for five to 10 percent of all diagnosed diabetes cases.
Source: American Diabetes Association
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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