October 3, 2003
Meal Planning, Food and Diet
Question from Maine, USA:
I’m a teenager with type 2 diabetes, and a class I am in at my school is planning a trip to the fair. Can you give me some tips on what to have and what not to have? How much cotton candy or popcorn should I should have? I like doughboys and fried dough so I am wondering if I can still have some of it.
Answer:
If you want my advice on ‘fried dough’ and ‘cotton candy’, it’s ‘none’, but discuss all this with your diabetes team dietitian.
I rather assume that you have the most common form of type 2 diabetes which is strongly linked to being overweight and not getting enough exercise, although I also note that you take insulin. I assume, by the way, that you really have type 2 diabetes and have had routine antibody tests to exclude type 1A (autoimmune) diabetes, because it isn’t always easy at onset to tell the two types apart on clinical grounds alone.
DOB