Tips for Staying Healthy During the Coronavirus Epidemic

Stay healthy with tips from paediatric endocrinologist Dr Joanna Tung!

1. Due to the coronavirus situation, kids cannot go out and exercise as much, leading to high blood glucose. What can parents do to help?

With the situation now, parents can encourage children to do some light exercise at home. Suitable exercise can be found on places like the Playright website and Facebook page. It is also a good idea to take the kids to go hike on the weekends for fresh air and exercise.

2. Aside from adjusting insulin dosage, what else can parents do to combat frequent high blood glucose?

Parents can encourage their children to do exercise at home. They can also give simple housekeeping tasks to their kids, such as sweeping, wiping the table, and tidying up toys. These tasks not only increase their activity at home, but also teaches them the importance of keeping one’s home clean.

3. As children stay home all the time, their sleep schedule is disrupted. How can parents deal with high blood glucose brought on by unhealthy sleep schedules?

Parents should help their children to maintain their daily routine, and let them know that it is closely related to blood glucose, especially that hormones have a huge impact on blood sugar.

At the same time, because children’s daily routine may be different from before, they need to keep a good record of their own blood glucose levels, rest times, diet and daily activity to better understand the relationship between blood glucose and daily their daily routines.

4. Aside from taking vitamin C, how can parents help children with diabetes to strengthen their immune system?

A strong immune system is important at all times. Aside from ingesting vitamin C, antioxidant foods like fresh fruits and vegetables will also strengthen the immune system. Keeping a healthy sleep schedule, exercising every day, and maintaining personal and household hygiene also helps.

5. Due to the coronavirus, children stay at home all day without structured breaks. How can parents deal with increased snacking?

Maintaining daily routine is essential to diabetes management, and the current situation is a good opportunity to learn more about diabetes management. Kids can learn about the relationship between insulin dosage and food intake by keeping clear records.

In addition, parents can make low-carb and low-sugar foods with their children, such as low-sugar carrot cookies, cucumber tuna dip, and vegetable noodles etc to share healthy and delicious snacks together without causing high blood sugar.