ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the diabetes question. The relationship between being overweight and diabetes has been known for a long time. The chapter examines how both German states, with their diverging political and public health systems, reacted towards the alarming increase in the number of overweight people and diabetics, and how they organized nutritional information and health education in order to prevent the further development of what is considered a major public health problem of today. The prevention of diabetes has become a main target of public-health policy and nutrition education, since diabetes causes high costs within the system of social insurance. Population statistics and epidemiological data are important tools for governments as they help to identify problems and their extent, to classify the groups of people involved and to develop remedial policies. Health policy was part of the German Democratic Republic's constitution from 1949.
