Our Aim

Along with diet and insulin, regular physical activity is an important aspect of the treatment of Type One Diabetes. Adolescents with T1D are recommended to do 60 minutes of Physical Activity per day. However, most are not meeting this target. Some adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes find that it is hard to be active because they are worried about low blood sugar levels and are unsure how to best manage this. Currently, there are no specific programmes for adolescents with T1D that provide help and support for diet and insulin management while being physically active.

We want to design an intervention that supports adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes to be active. This might be through providing resources that help with managing blood sugar (i.e with adjustments to insulin & carbohydrates) and providing information about the benefits of being active.

Exactly what this intervention will ‘look’ like will be guided by the research we do over the next few years. We plan to:

• look at self-management programmes that already exist and see if any parts of these could be used to help support physical activity

• Talk to adolescents, their parents, doctors, nurses, PE teachers, and sports coaches to find out what the barriers to being active might be and what we can do to help address these.