Diabetes impacts almost every Australian family in some way. It’s not uncommon for a family member to be either at risk of diabetes, be living with diabetes, or supporting a family member with diabetes.
“Diabetes concerns every family!”
With these words, the International Diabetes Federation recognize the importance of families in the World Diabetes Day campaign for 2018 and 2019.
World Diabetes Day is the world’s largest diabetes awareness campaign ever, reaching a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 160 countries.
The campaign aims to:
- Increase awareness of how diabetes affects you, your family and your support networks.
- Encourage the family’s role in caring, management, prevention and education of diabetes.
A family focus on living a healthy lifestyle can help prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
This includes increasing physical activity, eating a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy weight.
Knowing the risk factors and signs and symptoms of diabetes is vital for early detection and supports early diagnosis so that treatment can improve the lives of individuals and family members.
Healthy lifestyles are a very important part of the daily management of all types of diabetes.
It’s a great help when family and friends are supportive of healthy choices and the management of your diabetes.
Letting your family and friends know how you feel and communicating how you would like them to be involved in your diabetes management so they can support you can be very beneficial.
Remember to ask your family to share their feelings. It is common that they may feel sad, helpless or worried about you.
Fact sheet: Adjusting to life with diabetes
Emotional support from people around you can greatly improve your quality of life with diabetes.
It’s important to seek other support networks if you don’t have close family and friendship support networks.
Key points of the World Diabetes Day campaign:
Diabetes concerns every family. Over 425 million people worldwide are currently living with diabetes.
Most of these cases are type 2 diabetes, which is largely preventable through regular physical activity, a healthy and balanced diet, and the promotion of healthy living environments.
Families have a key role to play in addressing the modifiable risk factors for type 2 diabetes and must be provided with the education, resources and environments to live a healthy lifestyle.
1 in 2 people currently living with diabetes are undiagnosed.
Most cases are type 2 diabetes. Early diagnosis and treatment are key to prevent the complications of diabetes and achieve healthy outcomes.
All families are potentially affected by diabetes and so awareness of the signs, symptoms and risk factors for all types of diabetes are vital to help detect it early.
Diabetes can be expensive for the individual and the family.
In many countries, the cost of insulin injection and daily monitoring alone can consume half of a family’s average disposable income, and regular and affordable access to essential diabetes medicines are out of reach for too many.
Improving access to affordable diabetes medicines and care is therefore urgent to avoid increased costs for the individual and family, which impact on health outcomes.
Less than 1 in 4 family members worldwide have access to diabetes education programmes.
Family support in diabetes care has been shown to have a substantial effect in improving health outcomes for people with diabetes.
It is therefore important that ongoing diabetes self-management education and support be accessible to all people with diabetes and their families to reduce the emotional impact of the disease that can result in a negative quality of life.
Diabetes in your family? Here’s how we can help.
We’re here to give you all the support you need.
Talk to one of our health professionals or arrange a 1 on 1 consultation by calling 1300 198 204.
Explore our resources available for download or call us for a hard copy.