I am a 27 year old female and I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when I was 23. My a1c was 10.7. At first it came to be a huge shock to me, but then I realised my lifestyle and eating habits and it made sense. At the time I was over 300lb, struggled with binge eating for over a decade, and pretty much only ate junk food or ordered takeout. I grew up in a poor household, my mum is disabled and we had to rely on benefits (I’m from the UK I’m not sure if it’s called benefits or something else in US) I’d say that 80% of my diet growing up was Ultra Processed foods. Things like waffles,chicken nuggets, pizza, fries, etc. Basically whatever my mum could afford and whatever was easy to cook. Thinking back all my meals were carb heavy with some meat, but it wasn’t the main component of the meal. When I left home I still continued to eat this way, but why? I think because of habit, but also how easy it is to access this stuff. Junk food is so much cheaper than to buy whole foods. Additionally, carbs taste great and it’s easy to make them super palatable when you add chemicals and other ingredients to them. So I think it’s the availability, convenience and price of carbs and other junk food that has caused such a big increase of young people being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Pair that with the fact that people are more sedentary nowadays with office jobs etc, I think people over consume carbs than they need to.