Pediatricians are seeing rising cases of diabetes in children after the onset of COVID-19 has led to higher rates of obesity in the U.S.

KOB4 reports that over the past two decades, child obesity has been on the rise in the U.S., and pandemic made these issues because children who were already food insecure, became more so, among other issues caused by the pandemic. 

“Children lost the safety net and access to nutritious food and a safe place to be, and mandatory physical activity was limited for kids," UNM Hospital Pediatrician Dr. Sylvia Negrete said, according to KOB4.

Before the pandemic, Negrete said she had only diagnosed one child with diabetes, and since the beginning of the pandemic, she had diagnosed more than five or six. 

“I still recall a child that I saw in clinic and I tear, because all he had to eat was potatoes. That's it. Nothing else and yet it was a child, who was prediabetic,” Negrete told KOB4.

Other health issues she is seeing in children include depression as a direct result from obesity, along with "high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, to name a few,” Negrete told KOB4. 

Negrete stresses the importance of children's access to nutritious food and staying active.