We eat too much sugar, our diets are terrible, and type 2 diabetes is now one of Australia's major health problems.

In the COVID era, it's hardly surprising this epidemic isn't the one on everyone's minds. But it should be right at the top.

The COVID pandemic has forced many of us to reassess the way we've been living, working and socialising. And in many cases we're changing things for the better.

Intense disruption is often followed by a sense of clarity, a whittling down of the things that really matter in life - time with family, work-life balance, quality interactions with our communities. We should also be adding diet and lifestyle to this list, if we hadn't already.

COVID may have been thrust into our lives and taken up residence in most of our consciousness just two years ago, striking rich, poor, young and old indiscriminately, but it became clear early on in the pandemic that people with underlying health issues had a reduced chance of beating the virus without serious health complications.

Type 2 diabetes, and associated health conditions like obesity and heart disease, were significant factors when predicting how an individual might cope with COVID.

But it's an epidemic that had been creeping up on hundreds of Australians every day long before we'd even heard of COVID.

Almost 1.4 million Australians are living with some form of diabetes, with someone diagnosed every four-and-a-half minutes.

But Diabetes Australia - the country's peak body - has now acknowledged it is possible for adults with type 2 diabetes to manage their condition, and even send it into remission, through weight loss.

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This can be achieved through intensive dietary change (not to be confused with extreme dieting) and bariatric surgery, and is more achievable for those who've lived with type 2 diabetes for less than five years.

It's not always a realistic aim for those with long-term conditions.

But the organisation also emphasised weight loss and a healthy diet were worth aspiring to even without the prospect of remission.

We all have the means to address our own physical health, but it can be hard to know how and where to begin.

In the past week this newspaper has united with others in the ACM network to examine the causes and consequences of what we're calling Australia's "silent assassin". With the help of a number of the country's leading experts on the subject, we are committed to helping our readers better understand type 2 diabetes.

We've also taken the extra step of partnering with sports medicine clinician Dr Peter Brukner to offer every reader free access to his Defeat Diabetes app for three months - a practical way for us to help people potentially on the path to a diabetes diagnosis to reclaim their health.

Eye surgeon and 2020 Australian of the Year Dr James Muecke, writing for us last week, said our poor diet - a diet packed with sugar - was responsible for more disease and death than tobacco and alcohol combined.

As we begin to emerge from the COVID pandemic, having taken the easy and obvious step of getting vaccinated against the virus, there has never been a better time - as individuals, as communities and as a nation - to prioritise our overall physical wellbeing.

Eating better and moving more takes time and effort. It's more difficult than a couple of jabs in the arm. But we need to arrest this other stalking killer.

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