ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – A local diabetes expert warns America’s growing obesity epidemic is quickly spiraling into today’s youth with life-altering consequences.

About 3,600 children in America are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every year. And 1 of out every 7 people in Missouri has some type of diabetes.

The executive director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in St. Louis, Marie Davis, says the public needs to be aware of the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

“Type 1 is not a disease caused by lifestyle,” explains Davis. “It is a disease where the is body attacking its self. Therefore eating too much sugar, too much soda has nothing to do with the disease.”

Type 2 diabetes is caused by maintaining an unhealthy weight and not being as active as you should.

A federal funded study of nearly 700 youth with Type 2 diabetes found that it’s extremely hard to keep the disease under control, even with a common diabetes pill.

“A lot of them required more than one medication to keep the sugars under control,” said Washington University diabetes specialist Dr. Neil White who participated in the multicenter clinical trial.

White says early aggressive intervention is necessary to achieve the control needed to prevent the devastating health consequences of type 2 diabetes. If not controlled all type of diabetes cab cause vision loss, nerve damage, kidney failure, limb amputation, even heart attacks and strokes.