Indonesia is Home to 97th Largest Population on Diabetics

Jakarta (Antara) - Indonesia ranks among nine countries having the largest population of diabetics in the world, a pediatrician said. Dr Aman Pulungan, chairman of the Indonesian association of pediatricians (IDAI), said based on data from the Diabetes Atlas IDF of 2010, Indonesia had 7.6 million diabetics or the 9th largest in the world. Aman said Indonesia could easily rise to the sixth largest in the world in diabetic population, if Indonesians did not change their way of consuming unhealthy food by 2020. Diabetes Atlas IDF predicted that the number of diabetics in Indonesia would grow to 12 million in 2020. "This is a frightening epidemic. Diabetes already attacks people of child age in the country," he said. He said two million young people or one of six fat people of 12 to 19 years in age have entered the phase of pre-diabetes. "I am worried that this is a generation when many children would die earlier than their parents as a result of wrong way of life," he said. Too much consumption of food having high content of fat and calorie such as fast food would cause diabetes, especially as most Indonesian have not developed the habit of exercises, he said. (*) Reporting by Maria Rosari