Now, of Sugar Babes' 90 official members, roughly 40 percent have Type 2. One is 8. Another is 7.

It scares Dr. St. Louis. It scares many doctors who see the same thing, because they know it does not have to be. Type 2 was supposed to be an old person's disease. Diabetes still increases with age in an almost linear fashion - today, one in five New Yorkers age 65 and older have it - but the starting point used to be mostly in their 50's.

Dr. Alan Shapiro, a pediatrician with the Children's Health Fund and Montefiore Medical Center who has spent 13 years ministering to children in the South Bronx, said there was an easy way to illustrate the change. When he began, there was a "failure-to-thrive" clinic, meant to address the undernourished, because so many children were dangerously thin and small.

"Now I don't think we hardly ever see a failure-to-thrive case," he said.

In the clinic's place is an obesity program. Dr. Shapiro never saw children with Type 2 diabetes in his early years in medicine. Now, the program has about 10 cases.

One concern he and fellow doctors have is the surge in children who take antipsychotic drugs for anxiety and conditions like autism. Some newer drugs can promote weight gain and thus elevate the risk of diabetes. Dr. Shapiro has an autistic patient who he feels needs the new medication. But since taking it, the young man has markedly put on weight and, at 18, developed diabetes.

This extension of the disease to the young is where health care professionals feel society and public policy have most glaringly failed. Diabetes, they say, should never have gotten there.

There has been little research into the long-term impact of Type 2 diabetes on children. But doctors have a rough idea. The harsh consequences that can accompany diabetes tend to arrive 10 to 15 years after onset.

If people contract diabetes when they are 15, 10 or even 5, they may well start developing complications, not on the cusp of retirement but in the prime of their lives.