Diane Wales is petitioning the UK Parliament and Theresa May, herself a diabetic, to make carbohydrate content mandatory on all food packaging.
And she’s doing it to help her seven-year-old diabetic son, James, and millions of others like him in the UK.
Her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2016 and Diane says the diagnosis has been life changing for her family.
She said: “It’s completely changed our lives as we are con- stantly monitoring James’ blood sugars, day and night.
“James can’t just go for play dates or sleepovers with friends unless I am there or have trained the parent up on what to do with food and carb counting and how to monitor blood sugars/what to do in an emergency.
“It is a constant battle to ensure James is safe at all times when we are not there.
“Emotions, weather and sickness can affect the blood sugar levels.”
James’ diabetes is controlled by insulin and Diane and her family have to count all the carbohydrates in every meal or snack he has before calculating the amount of insulin to inject him with.
She said: “This is something we do at least three times per day, minimum.
“Packaging on most food and detailed info on menus are very poor at displaying the carbohydrate content per portion, if at all.
“Often packaging and menus don’t contain carb content at all or are displayed per 100g, which is ne at home with scales but no use at all if we are eating on the move.”
She added: “Getting the carbo- hydrate content accurate in every meal could be a life or death situation for someone with insulin con- trolled diabetes as high and low blood sugar can be deadly.
“There are over four million people in the UK with diabetes, representing around six per cent of the UK population, or one in every 16 people, thus I am surprised at the lack of this kind of information on food packaging/menus.
“This is something that needs to be mandatory, as to a patient or carer for someone with insulin controlled diabetes, carbohydrate information is more important than calorie information.”
So far the petition has gained 200 signatures but to be debated in parliament it will need to amass 100,000 signs of support.
To sign it visit: change.org
