March 27th is American Diabetes Association Alert Day. Started by The American Diabetes Association, it is “a day to sound the alarm about the prevalence of type 2 diabetes by asking everyone to take the Type 2 Diabetes Risk Test.”

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, almost 10 percent of the U.S. population is affected by diabetes.

At Bob Jones, 81 percent of the surveyed students said that they knew someone who is affected by diabetes. “I think that people do not understand what diabetes actually is and how it actually affects people’s lives,” Anna McCauley stated when asked about what this day was about.

This day is important “but it isn’t doing much,” one student said. “It is important to raise awareness because it is a very serious condition and the people with the disease and the people close to them are affected a lot.” 

If you know someone who may be at risk, you can click here and take a short test to see if you are at risk. Even though diabetes can be hereditary, there are some things that you can do to help prevent getting diabetes in the future. One thing that definitely helps is to exercise. The recommended time for teens is sixty minutes of exercise. Another thing you can do is to maintain a healthy diet. This means to just eat your fruits and vegetables while keeping unhealthy things mostly out of your diet. Also, keeping your weight down will definitely help to not develop diabetes in the future, and live a long healthy life.

Even though it is important to spread awareness on the day, we need to bring awareness to the cause every day and help decrease the number of people who will develop diabetes in the future.