Hong Kong's 'little emperors' - pampered only children who lead sedentary lives - could be fuelling a diabetes and obesity epidemic, experts warned yesterday.
The youngsters are believed to be suffering from 'diabesity', a term coined by Americans to refer to obesity-caused Type 2 diabetes, traditionally a condition contracted by adults where the body either does not make enough insulin, or, if making some, the insulin does not work properly because of obesity or lack of exercise. This form of diabetes was increasingly becoming common among children and teenagers in Hong Kong, said Professor Clive Cockram of the department of medicine's division of endocrinology and diabetes at Chinese University.
'The worrying thing about the children is the fact that it [Type 2 diabetes] is there at all. In the old days this condition was unheard of in children. It is now the commonest type of diabetes in some Asian countries.'
He said there were no statistics on how many SAR children had this type of diabetes but he believed it was approaching the level of Japan, where it affected four to five children out of every 100,000 - outnumbering that of Type 1 diabetes, which affected 1.5 to two children out of every 100,000 each year, he said.
Type 1, the traditional juvenile diabetes, is caused by damage of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
Professor Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne and a professor at the city's Monash University, said Asia, including Hong Kong, was breeding a generation of overweight children.