Sport, PT Class and Competition
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
Children with Type 1 are sometimes quietly excluded from sport — occasionally by schools, often by worried families. That exclusion costs more than it protects.
Activity is recommended for everyone with diabetes, and the guidance is the same as for anyone else: aerobic activity most days, strength work twice a week, with balance and stretching alongside. Type 1 changes the preparation, not the entitlement.
What a coach or PT teacher actually needs to know is short. That the child has Type 1 diabetes. That they must be allowed to test and to eat glucose whenever they say they need to, without asking permission or explaining. And what a low looks like — shakiness, confusion, unusual behaviour, going quiet or pale — and that the response is sugar first, questions later.
Practically: check before play, carry fast-acting glucose to the field rather than leaving it in a bag indoors, and check again afterwards. For a long match or tournament, a plan for mid-game top-ups is worth agreeing in advance.
One thing to avoid: exercising with high glucose and ketones present. That combination makes things worse rather than better, and is a reason to postpone.
Plenty of people with Type 1 compete at a high level. It requires preparation, not permission.