How does a normal kid's blood sugar work?

I can't express enough that my greatest fear is that one of my kids will get juvenile diabetes in his childhood. How do I know that a high sugar reading is related to mealtime and not some early symptom of an impending nightmare? I know that fasting sugar should be below 120 and three hour post meal should be below 160. What about before three hours?

Well, there isn't a lot you can do to prevent what used to be called juvenile diabetes- now usually called Type 1. In that case, the pancreas cells in the Isle of Langerhans die, and no longer produce insulin at all. The only treatment is to take daily insulin. That is usually genetic, although they think there is a viral connection as well. It's not particularly related to weight or diet otherwise. If what you fear is the insulin resistant type of diabetes, Type 2- that's influenced by diet, exercise and weight. The three hour interval in a glucose tolerance test is used to measure the bodies response to a measured amount of glucose intake. The fasting blood sugar is a baseline, with tests done usually at one hour, two hours and three or four hours. There isn't a specific number they look for, in that between time. What they do expect to see is a spike at the one hour point, with the blood sugar dropping back down to nearly the fasting level over the remaining two hours or so. What they don't want to see is the level spike and stay there, or stay elevated in the 140 range or more. You don't need to be testing the kids unless you have a pretty strong family history of juvenile diabetes, or the child is overweight with a family history of Type 2 and a young age onset history as well. A high sugar reading done within an hour or so of eating is related to the meal, how high it is is influenced by the carbohydrate content of the meal. That is pretty hard to guage for most folks, and why the glucose tolerance testing is done from a fasting state using a measured amount of glucose. Since it's already in a form usuable by the body, it all hits pretty quickly. Unlike the pasta, which has to have the starches converted, and therefor doesn't tend to raise to the same spike level as quickly. It's more slowly converted, so the rise would be slow as well. The best thing you can do for your children is make sure they eat a well balanced diet, heavy on the whole grains, fruit and veg, and they exercise. Most kids sit in class for hours, then come home and either veg out in front of the tv or computer. So it helps if there are family activities that are active, and limit the amount of time available to be a couch potato. And be sure you practice what you preach to them, and model the behavior that you want them to copy. If you don't walk the walk, neither will they. But for your own sanity, and theirs- unless there is a specific problem, don't worry about blood sugar monitoring. You will just drive them and you nutsy about this. And that can be counterproductive in getting them to do what you know they need and should do.

Everything Mom said (post above) and I would add, my son came down with type 1 at age 8 (runs in the famdamily)

He is now 26 and doing just fine, he's slim, muscular in fact since he works out a lot.

mom looks like she knows whats going on. i dont think i would like to type that much.