Child healthcare in India has not been able to reach the mark despite tremendous progress made since the 90’s. Starting off with the nation’s worrying listing of largest urban child survival gap among countries like Nigeria, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Kenya, Peru, Ghana, and Madagascar, this is something which should coerce the government to pull up its socks.
Flooding Exodus to Cities Swells Rich-Poor Urban Gap
“The Urban Disadvantage” – launched by Union Minority Affairs Minister Dr. Najma Heptulla in New Delhi and made by Save the Children – is the eye-opening 2015 report of the State of the World’s Mothers. Let’s see the highlights of the report:
Newborn deaths – 7.5 lakhs per year
Under-5 deaths – 1.3 million per year
Mother’s Index Rank – 140 out of 179
“While India has made laudable improvement on Infant Mortality Rate front, even today over 7,60,000 children die in India every year and many of these deaths are due to preventable causes. We obviously need to do a lot more,” said Dr. Heptulla. While India is infamously ranked among the 10 nations with widest survival gap between rich and poor urban children, what’s more striking is the quality of life of slum children and mothers – which is one of the worst in the world.
One good thing to cheer about is the substantial cut down in under-five mortality rate in 2013 since 1990 from 90 deaths to 46 per 1,000 successful births. However, the devil of “inequality” still stands tall. Thronging migration to major cities has left millions of urban children and their mothers deprived of quality healthcare services and safe drinking water, making them sensitive to unhealthy and dicey living.
5 Tips to Ingrain Healthy Eating Habits in Children
Certainly, raising up children in such unfortunate and insalubrious conditions is something any parent wouldn’t entertain. Another major reason for deprivation of young lives in urban regions, besides poverty, migration, and curtailment of healthcare facilities, is unhealthy eating habits. Let’s see what you can do as parents/guardians to raise healthy eaters in your family.
1. Play smart, don’t be a preacher at the table:
It’s usual for parents to start preaching about healthy eating habits. It used to work in the early 90’s; however, the Millennial generation, though praised today for its higher intelligence and social quotient, wants to have freedom and no restrictions. In this regard, you may want to be witty and smart to play it safe. Why not become a role model at the table? Have good conversations with your kids and let them observe how you put yourself at the table. Use some ear-kissing and saliva dripping adjectives while bragging about the good qualities and benefits of healthy foods.
2. Don’t be oversmart:
In order to stuff in vegetables and fruits in their children’s diet, parents generally camouflage them in their favorite pizza or macaroni. This forces children to lose trust in their parents handling their foodstuff. A research shows that children are likely to develop taste and desire for vegetables when they are made visible in meals.
3. Raise curiosity:
The best method to raise curiosity in your children for healthy foods is by allowing them to lend a helping hand in preparing meals in ways of measuring ingredients, mixing them in the recipe, serving appropriate portions, etc. This will not only raise curiosity for healthy foods but also develop a sense of acceptance for new foods.
4. Start very young:
As rightly said, good habits take time to get cultivated and nurtured. That’s why it’s important to begin instilling healthy eating habits in your children at their tender age, so that it becomes easy for both your children and you (as parents). But, don’t throw your children’s preferences out of the window; let them explore a range of healthy choices.
5. Bring out your “fun” side:
Your healthy eating teachings should include fun sessions too. Use storytelling as your primary tool to introduce your kids to nutritious vegetables, grains, and fruits taking help of healthy food heroes. You could also use something like a creative lunch box or kid-friendly meals prepared with animal-shaped kitchen tools.
Attention Disorder Linked with Eating Disorder in Children
While children may be criticized for unhealthy eating patterns, a new study reports an unfortunate connection between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and loss of control eating syndrome (LOC-ES), which is usually found in adults analogous to a binge eating disorder. Children, therefore, cannot be blamed alone because some conditions are involuntary.
Johns Hopkins Children’s Center not only researched a shared biological mechanism connecting ADHD and LOC-ES, but also managed to research about the potential for originating a mutual treatment for both. While weight loss is usual with ADHD treatment with stimulant drugs, the cause of excess weight gain is yet hazy. Study leader Shauna P Reinblatt and his associates made efforts to find out the suspected possible connection between dysregulation of control over appetite and the characteristic impulsivity of ADHD.
Following were the results obtained:
- Children with ADHD could risk 12 x LOC-ES
- Children with LOC-ES & obesity could risk 7 x ADHD
- Children with ADHD & LOC-ES could risk severe ADHD (more impulsive behavior)
- Children with ADHD & LOC-ES could have shared underlying risk (genetic predisposition to impulsivity)
PM2.5 Exposed Infants to Develop 1.5-Fold Risk of ASD
Professor of epidemiology, Evelyn Talbott, of University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health lead a new research which referred a connection between air pollution and autism in children. Those infants whose mothers were exposed to higher concentrations of PM2.5, an air pollution type, during pregnancy were likely to develop the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) as greater as 1.5-fold.
Talbott said, “Autism spectrum disorders are lifelong conditions for which there is no cure and limited treatment options, so there is an urgent need to identify any risk factors that we could mitigate, such as pollution.”
Looking at these serious conclusions of various researches suggesting a very possible threat to the lives of children (including their mothers) and slothful progress of our country, child healthcare is still a question mark.
Nice and perfect