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Knotty ties
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Junk that weight gain Are
urban mothers stuffing their children with too much food? Yes, they are.
And this at times leads to certain physical and mental disorders and,
believe it or not, even to untimely death. Stand outside the gate of
any school when the last bell rings and you will find that as the
children rush out eagerly into the arms of their waiting mothers, they
also anticipate a ‘treat’. Most of these mothers immediately guide
their children to the nearest fast-food centre to gorge on a large plate
of chow mien or a burger or a bar of chocolate before they reach home.
In urban India, obesity has taken a serious proportion, and the
country also has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of
diabetes cases in the world — 70 per cent of them are obesity related.
Alarmingly, the malaise often starts at childhood itself. Studies have
shown that 80 per cent of the obese children are most likely to become
obese in adulthood. Lifestyle changes, surplus income and a fondness for
junk food have added to the growing flab of the
children. Paediatricians roughly estimate that around 60 per cent of
the children from upper middle class, urban families have unhealthy
nutritional habits that could lead to serious problems. In the affluent
West, doctors and social scientists are hammering on the problem of
obesity due to these factors but we are emulating the same habits, warn
dieticians. In The Penguin India Guide to Child Care, senior
paediatrician Dr R.K. Anand suggests: "When your children are
small, avoid preparation of foods which you yourself consider are not
healthy. The list of unhealthy foods contains all cold drinks, fast
foods that have too much salt and saturated fats, cream biscuits,
sweets, coffee, cakes, pastries, chewing gum and potato
wafers." Admittedly, this is rather a difficult task for today’s
parents to abide by as the TV screen is flush with ads of every kind of
food your child should not eat, styled attractively by a food stylist
and photographed by a professional photographer. Competition is also
there in the upmarket, highbrow school your child goes to, where it
would be difficult to dissuade him from imitating his peers whose
attractive tiffin boxes spill over with chips, tarts and pastries. Then
there is the problem of time management for the busy mother who may be
an executive at a corporate firm and allows the child’s ayah to decide
his diet for want of time. Over the past 15 years, eating disorders
among children have been rising. Arun, an intelligent, playful and
socially hyperactive boy of six began to reveal weariness and
irritability much sooner than his peers did. His alarmed parents took
recourse to assorted medications but finally took him to a paediatrician
who said that the child’s diet was alarmingly unbalanced. His food
chart comprised of – bread, jam, dal, rice and potato. Food
nutrients such as iron, vitamins, proteins, etc, were almost
absent. Then there was this seven-year-old Babli, who lived on Marie
biscuits soaked in milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She refused to
take anything else. She had not learnt even to chew solid food. A slight
push from a friend would make her sprawl on the ground. Her parents didn’t
recognise it as a problem until her grandmother pointed out its
seriousness. The psychiatrist diagnosed the malady as ‘deranged
dependence.’ Both the parents and the child had to be counselled to
introduce her to a more wholesome menu. Says clinical psychologist
Sivakami Rajamuthiah, "With more families with a single child,
parents are becoming fiercely overprotective about their offspring. The
kids have everything given to them on a platter and when they are young,
food corners the top slot." If the child is not happy with the
lunch, a hamburger is ordered pronto. If the child dislikes a particular
vegetable, another one is tossed up in a jiffy. Children also kill their
regular appetite by having junk foods in between meals. Some children
tend to overeat because they are unhappy for some reason and are into
‘eating their unhappiness.’ Some eat more just to manipulate their
parents’ obsessive love for them. The same sometimes applies to
children who refuse to eat. In other words, there is no rule-of-thumb
that can be applied to children and this begins with their eating
habits. What is the best way to deal with the problem? Counsellors
advise that parents should stop stuffing their children with food even
if they refuse to eat or have the tendency of gobbling up everything
that is given to them. It is a natural tendency with parents to take
children to eat out as an alternative to eating at home because for most
children, eating out is a delightful experience. Eating out is
entertainment. It should not be used as a substitute for eating at home.
If nutritional values of each food item are explained to a child, they
may not listen to begin with. But with time, they will internalise some
of these explanations and learn to choose the right food. Some doctors
suggest taking the child along for food marketing. The colours of
natural foods like fresh greens, fibrous foods like beetroot, carrot,
radish, and fruits like apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, pineapple,
etc. would attract him. Making salad a part of the family’s daily diet
is a good way of beginning. Introduction of nutritious dishes not served
before is another suggestion. Some kids need to taste a new food at
least 14 times before they learn to accept it. The final word belongs to
Dr Anand, who says, "The best way to develop healthy food habits in
children is to practise healthy habits ourselves." — TWF |
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Having celebrated her
nuptials less than a year ago, 29-year-old Wen Jun already considers
her marriage a failure. "Our relationship is so different to how it was before,"
said Wen, who lives with her husband and his parents in Shanghai, the
communist nation’s commercial hub. "Marriage is really tough.
It’s not just two people living together forever, it’s his
parents, my parents and us, all trying to get along," Wen,
said. Clearly, Wen is not alone. Of the 1,073 newly wed couples
surveyed in 10 cities around China by a dating website, 75.4 per cent
of the wives said they would stick with their current husband if they
could choose again. More than 10 per cent of the wives said that if
they had known before getting married what they know now, they would
have chosen a different husband, and nearly one in eight said they
wished they had stayed single. Not only that, almost two-thirds of
the wives admitted to having regretted their marriages at some
point. Suggesting that even unhappy couples can agree on something,
the figures for regretful husbands were almost identical to those for
wives, although the dating company did not release how closely couples’
answers correlated. — PTI
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In
a stark warning that all is not well among young Chinese couples, a
recent survey has found that almost one in four Chinese brides regrets
saying "I do." A survey of newly weds, married in the last
three years, found that if they could have their time again more than
24 per cent of the wives would either choose a different husband or
not marry at all, China Daily reported.