This week, like most others at LifeLab, will see dozens of students visit our purpose built facilities here at University Hospital Southampton.

There will be the familiar buzz of excitement as students don their lab coats and goggles and prepare to get hands on with a range of experiments that will help shape how they consider their own health and the choices they make to effect it.

The ethos that underpins our work here at LifeLab is that we firmly believe in educating young people about the science behind the health messages so they can make informed choices for themselves, this includes discussing with students the causes, effects and preventative measures associated with non-communicable diseases.

Type 2 diabetes is one of those, conditions associated with poor diet is another.

As part of raising awareness of type 2 diabetes, students get the opportunity test and diagnose sugar levels in different (fake!) blood samples, work out their own type 2 diabetes risk and discuss how lifestyle choices can increase the risk of this disease.

The theme for Diabetes Week is all about starting those conversations, #talkaboutdiabetes is about speaking openly and honestly about the condition and its impact.

 

We are starting that conversation on a weekly basis with young people who up to that point may not have realised how their lifestyle choices could put them at risk of developing the condition.

The awareness week also coincides with Healthy Eating Week, another important campaign that seeks to raise the profile of the importance of making the right choices when it comes to food.

This year LifeLab has been referenced a number of times in connection with how our approach could be part of a wider drive to tackle childhood obesity. By letting young people discover for themselves what impact their choices could have on their health now and in the future, we are empowering them to make lifelong changes rather than short-lived ones.

Both Diabetes Week and Healthy Eating Week provide great opportunities to further underline the importance of the conversations we start here in LifeLab each and every week.