Child health and parenting

A report on the increasing incidence of early-onset Type 2 diabetes by a NICE panel has received too little coverage. The essence of the report is that children as young as seven are being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, normally associated with the middle-aged and elderly.

The report blames parents for driving their children to school and avoiding exercise, and feeding them junk food. "These children end up having heart attacks, or losing a limb, or their sight, in their thirties and forties." The report says that "a tsunami" of diabetes is engulfing the country. Unusually, this problem does not seem to be strongly poverty-linked.

I have been increasingly concerned at the life-long, and importantly, irreversible, effects of poor parenting. These physical effects include fundamental metabolic problems, such as diabetes or obesity, and brain development problems, such as foetal alcohol syndrome.

Our children deserve the best start in life - and we should all campaign for better parenting, and in our professional lives, never forget these issues when we are dealing with parents.

I could make a strong case that these failures in parenting amount to abuse - and I hope, in that context, that GPs (in particular) follow the recent GMC advice to deal with child protection and safeguarding in respect of abuse of diet and lifestyle as well as alcohol and drugs.