Health care professionals should pay particular attention to identifying children and young adults — particularly girls and young women — with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who may be using unhealthy weight-loss practices.

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Researchers conducted a survey to assess weight-related issues and weight-loss practices. Young women (n=1,742) and men (n=1,615) aged 10 to 21 years completed a SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study visit.

Participants who had ever tried to lose weight (n=1,646) most commonly reported using healthy weight-loss practices such as diet (76.5%) and exercise (94.8%). Unhealthy practices such as fasting (8.6%), using diet aids (7.5%), vomiting or laxative use (2.3%) and skipping insulin doses (4.2%) were less common, according to the researchers.

“Although more common in youth with type 2 diabetes, youth with type 1 diabetes also reported weight-related concerns and had elevated BMI,” the researchers wrote.

In sex-specific multivariable models, young women who were obese and young men who were overweight or obese were more likely to report ever practicing unhealthy weight-loss practice. Unhealthy practices were associated with poor glycemic control in young women but not in young men, and all unhealthy practices except fasting were more common in young women, according to the researchers.

Dieting, fasting and using diet aids were more common in participants with type 2 diabetes compared with participants with type 1 diabetes.

“Physicians and other health professionals caring for diabetic youth … [should] provide them with more healthy weight-management strategies in the context of their ongoing diabetes management,” the researchers wrote.

Diabetes Care. 2008;31:2251-2257.