ABU DHABI, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will soon launch a nation-wide diabetes survey for children to collect the data about how many and how young children are when they get the illness in which the body cannot control the level of sugar in the blood, local Gulf News reported Tuesday.

    The UAE Health Ministry has already started a pilot survey in a school in the country's northern emirate of Sharjah, said Muna Al Khuwairi, a senior official with the ministry.

    After getting the results of the pilot survey in five or six months, the ministry will implement the survey in all schools in the Gulf Arab country, Khuwairi added.

    The survey will measure the schoolchildren's weight and height, calculate their body mass index, and also ask the children about their eating habits and lifestyle.

    The ministry will compare the results with the finding of the 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) Global School-Based Student Health Survey, which found that 11.8 percent children at the age of 13 to 15 surveyed in private and public schools were obese.

    Figures by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) showed that about one in five people in the UAE has diabetes, second only to the South Pacific island-state of Nauru.

    Doctors have reported children as young as 10 being diagnosed with Type II diabetes in the country, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes. There are also reports that children as young as six have shown up with symptoms of pre-diabetes.

    The UAE Health Ministry is working on implementing a school health program to educate kindergarten-age children on diabetes, its risks and how to prevent it, Khuwairi said, adding that the government has started to require schools to have only healthy foods on the cafeteria menu.