Celebrating diabetes week in Barnet
For some people, making healthy behaviour changes to your diet, weight and physical activity can significantly reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Barnet Public Health lead & support a range of diabetes prevention activities to reduce health inequalities associated with incidence of diabetes. We also work with the North Central London NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme Partnership to support with the delivery of the programme in Barnet.
- Diabetes is a serious condition where your blood glucose level is too high. It can happen when your body doesn't produce enough insulin or the insulin it produces isn't effective. Or, when your body can't produce any insulin at all.
- There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2.
- There are lots of other types of diabetes (e.g., gestational diabetes).
On Friday 14th June 2024, we held a diabetes week event at Brent Cross Shopping Centre. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of type 2 diabetes among Barnet residents, and to highlight that many people are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but there are steps that can be taken to reduce this risk.
During the event stallholders & partners provided information about reducing risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes and wider health and wellbeing. Also, there was a Bollywood dance routine performed by Edgware Dance Group.
Members of the public were offered a ‘Know Your Risk’ tool to assess the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, by Greenwich Leisure Limited (Better) and the Community Diabetes Nurse team at Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust. This year, 106 people received the Know Your Risk assessment. Of these, 78 people were found to have a high or very high risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the next ten years. All who participated were given information and advice about how to reduce their risk.
It was a successful event & there was a good level of engagement from members of the public throughout the day. The event helped to raise awareness of type 2 diabetes among Barnet residents & signpost participants to local support groups and services.
Barnet Public Health Team plans to deliver three prediabetes community testing events over the next 6 months. Alongside this, planning for the diabetes week event in 2025 will begin early next year.
For more information about diabetes and diabetes prevention, please see here:
What is diabetes? | Getting to know the basics | Diabetes UK