Diabetes is arguably one of the deadliest diseases in Indonesia.

Data shows that the projected number of patients suffering from diabetes in the country is expected to reach about 9.5 million by 2024 when the population growth will decline slightly.

With around 9.5 million people living with diabetes, the most populous nation in Southeast Asia has a prevalence rate of 6.2%.  

Diabetes is also one major cause of death in Indonesia and rated as one of the top ten countries globally with a high number of individuals living with diabetes in 2013.  It is also reported that alongside with the country’s population structure, the prevalence of diseases changes proportionally.

Although the disease itself has mostly been associated with old age as most of the patients are those in their advanced age, there has been a new alarming trend in recent years.

The country has recently seen a surge in the number of kids suffering from diabetes. The Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) reported that there had been a staggering 70 times increase in the number of diabetes cases among Indonesian kids in 2023 as opposed to that in 2010.  It also reported that 1,645 kids suffered from this deadly disease in thirteen major cities across the country, including in capital Jakarta.

46.23 percent of the cases were reported in kids around 10-14 years old; 31.05 percent of them were found among kids aged 5-9 years old; 19 percent were reported among kids aged 0-4 years old; while the remaining 3 percent were reported among kids who were 14 years old and beyond.  

The majority of Indonesians, including kids, are sweetened food and sugary beverages afficionados.

Research carried out by the country’s Ministry of Health in 2018 shows that 61.3% of the respondents said they consumed sugary beverages more than once a day, while 30.2% of the respondents said they consumed sugary beverages around once to six times per week. Only 8.5% of the respondents said they consumed sugary beverages less than three times per in a month. The data indicates that a great number of Indonesians have diabetes risk factors.

Sweetened food and sugary beverages are literally everywhere in Indonesia. They are not only cheap for the majority of the population but also easy to get, especially now that you can conveniently order food and drink online. As a repercussion, most children are now dangerously exposed to those dangerous sweetened food and sugary beverages. Consuming sugary beverages with a variety of toppings has seemed to become a new trend and a new lifestyle among Indonesians, including children. In fact, research found that the more sugary beverages people drink, the greater their risk of premature death – particularly from cardiovascular disease – and to a lesser extent from cancer.

In response to this, Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiative (CISDI) has urged the government to immediately issue a regulation that can restrict the people from consuming sugary beverages and to impose excise duty on those beverages up to 20% of the price.  

The move can be a good start but the enforcement on the ground remains to be seen.  

Diabetes can be caused not only by the food and the drink one consumes but also a bad lifestyle, including lack of exercise.

Back to the good old days when I was kid, the neighborhood I lived in the city of Bandung – around 3 hours-drive from Jakarta – was always crowded with kids engaging in outdoor activities such as playing football, playing kites, biking around, and many others.

Today, however, the scene of children playing kites or doing outdoor activities, at least in major cities, has become increasingly rare. In fact, many are now preoccupied with their cellphones watching YouTube, playing online games, or watching TikTok videos.

Indonesian, including kids, are among avid internet users in the world. Data from the country’s Communications and Informatics Ministry shows that there are around 80-100 million internet users in Indonesia. Internet users aged 15-40 years reached 68 percent, while internet users under the age of 15 were 10 percent, and the rest were internet users aged 40 years and over.

The recent pandemic has also made things even worse for the kids. It has forced millions of Indonesian kids to stay at home most of the time, forcing them to do things online such as studying, interacting with friends, attending religious gatherings, and so on.

It’s as if the pandemic that lasted around two years has created a new lifestyle among many Indonesian kids in that they do everything online and severely lack outdoor activities.

To make matter worse, many major Indonesian cities such as Jakarta lack open green spaces where the public, including kids, can be engaged in outdoor activities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been declared over in Indonesia as the government announced the lifting of the restrictions a couple of weeks ago. However, the country is now actually facing yet another deadly threat that can be as dangerous as COVID-19 pandemic. Or even worse.