The Metabolic Syndrome often includes Type 2 diabetes along with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood fats.
Having the Metabolic Syndrome puts people at a high risk for heart and blood vessel disease.
There is a strong association between diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome since people with Type 2 diabetes generally exhibit a number of the components of this syndrome.
Investigators at the University of Turku in Finland looked at nutrition in children and their risk of developing the metabolic syndrome as adults.
Their study, published in July 2012 in the journal Diabetes Care, included:

• 2,128 children and young people aged 3 to 18 years at the beginning of the work.
  

After 27 years it was found:

• those who ate the most vegetables as children had a 14 percent lower risk of developing the Metabolic Syndrome than those who ate few or no vegetables.
  
• the participants who ate the most vegetables in childhood had a 12 percent lower risk of high blood pressure and a 12 percent lower risk of high blood fats than those who ate little or no vegetables.
  

This led the investigators to conclude eating vegetables in childhood could possibly protect them against developing the Metabolic Syndrome in adulthood.
Many children are not fond of vegetables, but with some creative cookery they might be able to find something they like from the veggie menu.

• the website at Vegan-pizza suggests a pizza topping made with sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus tips, vegan mozzarella, grilled zucchini, chili pepper flakes, grilled eggplant, sauteed spinach, or minced garlic.
  
• the AllRecipes website has recipes for grilled asparagus, Thai charred eggplant with tofu, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and cabbage.
  
• why not try a grilled vegetable medley with corn, zucchini, squash, onion, green pepper, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, dried basil, olive oil, parsley flakes and butter (substitute olive oil).
  

Try freezing green beans and giving them to the kids as snacks.
Some children who will not eat cooked peas will eat the frozen ones straight from the bag.
Or put a small amount of peanut butter onto a celery stalk for a snack that is high in fiber, vitamins, and protein.
Kale chips taste good and are crunchy if you cook them just right.
Place kale leaves onto a cookie sheet and spray with a light topping of olive oil.
Sprinkle with a little onion salt.
Microwave for 3 minutes or until crispy.
Getting it just right could take a little practice, but kale chips are good snacks high in nutritional value.
Many children like vegetables dipped into ranch dressing, although, it tends to be high in calories.
The website Vegetarian.
about suggests making your own vegan ranch dressing using vegan mayonnaise, soy milk, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, chopped parsley, vinegar and dried dill.
Sounds like a great Type 2 diabetes prevention plan!