If your teen or tween has no time for exercise and is glued to a computer screen for hours playing games, there is cause for worry. If he/she is always nibbling chips and his burger-cola parties are beginning to give you sleepless nights, you need to worry more. Apart from contributing to the growing problem of obesity among children, here is worse news — 85 per cent of children diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes are overweight.

To create awareness regarding the increasing incidence of diabetes among children, comic books with a health focus were launched on Tuesday by

Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.

The books have characters like Sheela the housewife and Radha the next-door sister who “lead kids through a sequence of incidents on the subject”.

The 16-page comic book contains information like signs of diabetes, managing the disease and its detection.

“Diseases that are normally seen in adults are now being seen with increasing frequency among children, particularly Type-2 diabetes,” said Dr Ashok Jhingan, chairperson of Delhi Diabetes Research Centre (DDRC), and the brain behind the concept. “And obesity is one of the major causes of the disease.”

To begin with, DDRC’s Juvenile Diabetes Education Foundation of India is launching 1,000 copies of the comic series named “Diabetes and You” in Hindi and English in various government, MCD, and private schools of Delhi and NCR.

“The comic comprises of stories, diagrammatical information and pictorial situations that will educate children about the deadly disease,” Dr Jhingan added.

So why comics to spread awareness? “Children love comics and try to emulate the characters, so we thought of using comics to catch them young,” he added. “It is important to generate awareness about diabetes, as by the time children reach Class V, they have already formed their food habits”

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