Colonias y campamentos de verano para niños y jóvenes con diabetes. La alimentación: cara a cara, teoría y práctica

Although it is obvious that educating the boy/girl with diabetes has to be a personalized and sustained process, summer holiday camps are considered a very appropriate instrument (as suggested by the World Health Organization, the WHO, in the St. Vincent Declaration of 1989) for taking educational action both in what concerns self-control techniques and as psychological help for accepting the disease. The fact of being away from the family unit and also from the hospital environment, in a relaxed atmosphere, living with other boys/girls with diabetes, makes these summer activities a very favourable experience for learning to control glycaemias, modify the dosages, deal with acute situations and intercurrent conditions (often related with the coordination between sports activities, meals and the insulin dosage), choose the most appropriate food, all in all, to manage to get the treatment better adapted to everyday activity, always in a way that is integrated in daily activities. On the other hand, it is also enriching for the health personnel participating. For the 10 days a holiday camp tends to last, the health professionals (medical and nursing staff and dieticians-nutritionists) have the opportunity to live with the child or adolescent with diabetes in a situation which is not one that tends to occur in a hospital visit or consultation. In the educational process that these co-existences represent, the process of education in food both from the point of view of the appropriate healthy diet in childhood and adolescence, and from the aspect of the treatment of the disease itself stands out significantly.