Pushpaa Hospital

Hi, this is Malika Kabra Rathi being a mother of a 5 year old and a paediatric nutrition since 10 years, I know how challenging it is for mothers to feed their fussy, picky or poor eaters.

So today I am going to share with you my 5 prong approach in order to ensure that your child eats well and will fully. A research suggests that when you introduce lumpy or chewy food at the age of 6 to 9 months, your child appreciation for food increases and it reduces the likelihood of him turning into a fussy eater later on. If your child’s first took hasn't interrupted, don't worry his gums are strong enough to be able to grind that food. If you hadn't done this when your child was a baby, again don't worry it's never too late nor too early to start following these guidelines to tackle your fussy eaters.

So the first approch is do not give up on food rejection and also an Australian research suggests till you don't introduce a new food for nearly 10 times on 10 different occasions, you cannot really label that food as undesirable by your child, so keep trying and keep patience. Remember that child should be practically hungry each time you introduce the new food. Second, keep calm Indian parents equate their happiness question to the amount of food their child eats, some mothers even break down when their child refuses to eat. Remember, a child will never voluntarily starve unless he is unwell. In fact children are very good judge of their own hunger and appetite signals. If meal times are friendly children really look forward to it. Just the way our appetite keeps fluctuating as per our activity levels, digestion, sleep patterns and the weather outside. Similarly, no single child will eat the same amount of food on your daily basis, so keep realistic goals and please feed on demand.

Some warning signals for the parents whose child refuses to eat,no nagging or yelling not showing anxiety, no threatening, no bribing the child with foods like cakes, chocolate, biscuit cookies, and no running after the child with food plate in hand. If the child is suffering from constipation or lack of energy during the day, is not in getting in happy playtime or is falling sick very often please discuss the same with your paediatrician. Third, setup good and responsible examples, charity begins at home we all know parents and relatives staying with their young children are their first point of contact. Parents with restrictive eating habits pass on the same to their children because children learn their behaviour from their parents. So don't limit your child's food variety to those that you prefer, it may so happen that your childs taste buds are totally different than yours and perhaps all this while you were feeding only those who to your child that he didn't quiet originally like.

Fourth, food and growth, like I said before child will never voluntarily stave unless he is unwell. So if he is eating well and he is growing well and not falling sick too often you are on the right track. If it is still your concern then please keep a tab on the total amount of food that the child eats during the day, children can graze constantly so the amount of snacks that they label on between there three full square meals just like we adults we love to have a 3 full square meals, a child may end up snacking more often and all these little little snacks that the child labels on ads up to their energy and calorie value and which is why they are fuller for longer hours.

If you need further reassurance , please check your child’s growth and weight chart and discuss the same with your paediatrician. One word of question, there are children who eat well but are lagging behind in their growth and weight chart they could be hyperactive, so please reduce the amount of sugar, milk, chocolates, bakery items processed and packaged foods in their diet, instead substitute it with nuts, millets, whole fruits and vegetables, homemade ghee, homemade snacks and homemade curd and see the difference for yourself. Fifth, meal time strategies, be a good role model while you sip on your early morning tea and coffee do not expect your child to start his or her day with something healthy. Set up regular habits of eating and sleeping in time, a child when wakes up in the morning is practically very hungry provided he wakes up early in the morning by early I mean anywhere between 8 to 8:30 or even before that, avoid putting your child to sleep very late in the night or during afternoon. Early to bed and early to rise will surely keep your child healthy, wealthy and wise Encourage self-feeding and food exploration from a very young age don't worry if they messed up in fact teach your child about nutritive value of some common foods, he will be surprised to know what good nutritionist they turn out to be.

My 5 year old child, as soon as he spots Amla in the market he tells me how abundant it is in Vitamin C and how it helps standing his immunity. Keep sufficient gap between two meals example anywhere between 1 to 3 hours is ideal depending on the child’s age, activity levels and appetite. Offer a wide variety of fresh and colourful fruits and vegetables on your child's plate. Encourage each time he tries a new fruit or vegetable, remember, if your child likes a particular kind of fruit or vegetables avoid serving it to him on a daily basis because sooner or later he is going to get bored of it as children taste buds a constantly changing, in fact focus on variety in taste, texture, colour, consistency of food cooking methods and selection of ingredients. Offer alternatives between the same food groups if your child dislikes milk don't worry offer him a whole lot of curd, yoghurt, homemade paneer and homemade ghee. Do not force feed your child, a child will only throw up or vomit if you force feed or over feed him.

Don't compare between two children because every child has his unique body structure, eating preferences and immunity, so don't compare two children on the amount of food they eat, their height, growth and weight. Food and water go hand in hand, if your child is eating well but is not having enough water it can further suppresses his appetite. So please ensure your child is hydrated well specifically in summertime. I hope my 5 prong approach is of use to you in your real life situation to deal with fussy picky and poor eaters, just the way it was for me. Motherhood is the best gift of nature so enjoy every bit of it and don't turn yourself into fussy mothers in order to tackle your fussy eaters,

Thank you.

Mango Oats Smoothie and Healthy Pizza Sandwich - Health Mange More

Hi,

This is Mallika Kabra Rathi and I am a clinical nutritionist.

Today I am going to speak about what should be a diet of a woman specifically if you are a working woman or a housewife, during the day in order to keep yourself in good shape. As a woman, we all want to and strive hard to look gorgeous and feel gorgeous from within since we are always multitasking what we must eat during the day goes down a Priority list. You could be a working woman, a housewife, a teacher or student or a businesswoman and what food we choices what would case we must make in order to keep ourselves healthy and fit goes down on the priority list. So today I am going to talk about exactly what are the things a working woman because she is taking care of a family of her children or maybe she is taking care of her own career, so what are the food choices. The right food choices you must make in order to stay healthy fit active and happy, yes. So now let's start with the diet plan that exactly you must follow in order to stay in good shape, so two most important things that you have to take care of is one is one is prioritising, yes as women we tend to neglect ourselves and put ourselves on the last priority. So yes we have to focus on our health first because if the woman of the family is healthy and fit she can give rise to a stronger and fitter family, society and Nation, yes. So little bit of prioritising and planning, if we are well planned a day in advance we can prepare for any eventualities like an urgent meeting that comes up or some guests who turn up or suddenly if the kids go sick. So if you are well prepared in advance you will ensure that no matter what your food is in time. Ok, so let's start with the diet plan first and foremost when you go to bed it is very important to brush your teeth, yes, why I will tell you because first thing in the morning when you wake up you are not supposed to brush your teeth but all the good bacteria that are collected in your mouth, you have to drink a couple of glasses of warm water. Why you have to drink that warm water, you have to swish nicely and drink it so that all the good bacteria go inside your tummy. So two prerequisites of maintaining your weight, one is a very strong robust digestive system yes and when you drink that water first thing in the morning after fasting full night, what happens is you get a good dose of probiotic bacteria and enzymes and this keeps your digestive system in a good chair. And the second most important thing that is required is to chew your food very well, yes the old added chewing your food for 30 times is actually true. So first thing you drink 2 glasses of warm water you can squeeze a little lemon or Ginger or Honey all these just aids in improving your digestive system, excreting enough pancreatic enzymes and digestive enzymes just enough to ensure that your gut is prepared for whatever food you are going to put inside. The second thing that you are going to do is immediately after half an hour of having your water, don't have that your cafe coffee but yes you have to have a seasonal fruit. Now if you are working, you preparing tiffin how easy is to just grab a fruit which is seasonal and eat it on the go and yes remember to chew your food very well. The third thing that you are going to do is after the fruit after at least one is you have to eat your breakfast now. If you are cooking the breakfast yourself and if you have the time to cook breakfast then please cook one of the options that I am giving you it could be poha, it could be Upma, it could be dosa, idli but remember two things one is the protein and other is fibre. So if you are having your poha club it with little sprouts, if you are having Upma club it with the glass of sattu because that gives you the protein which is required, if you are eating a platter please club it with the katori of curd because that contains probiotic bacteria and it also contains good amount of calcium and protein which we all women lacking and fourth thing is if you are having eggs please put a dash of vegetables in it, have it with the chapatti. So if you do not have time to cook a lavish breakfast for yourself and if you are on the go, your packing difference just ensure that you split your lunch, if you are making roti, sabji, dal, rice split it, have the roti sabji for breakfast and keep the rice and dal along with the salad or sabji for your lunch. So it's ok if you do not have the time to make breakfast, but I'm sure that you don't skip the breakfast but you can skip the breakfast as for your physical activity. If you are not very physically active early in the morning have the breakfast but reduce the portion. Now after having these breakfast options after 2 hours please ensure that you have a pre-lunch. What is the pre-lunch, pre-lunch is a small snack that you have just one hour before your lunch, now this prevent you from binging in your lunch, yes, it's very important to ensure that you eat your lunch only as much as you required. When you follow the principle of chewing your food very well remember you know exactly when to start your meal and you know exactly when to stop your meal, no nutritionist, no doctor should be able to tell you how much your body requires, it should be your own decision. So if you chew your food very well and if you have a pre-lunch you will ensure that you eat just as much lunch as you required and if you are going to be busy between the lunch and dinner like most of us are, you are not going to overeat in the lunch thinking that the next meal is just going to be your dinner no you have to eat your lunch just that much which suffices for 2 to 3 hours of your work that's it. So what are you going to have as pre-lunch you are going to have maybe a couple of nuts which give you your Omega 3 fatty acid, which gives you your antioxidants and your fibre and protein or you could have as simple as a glass of Chaach, a katori of curd or a glass of Sattu or you could just grab fruit but do ensure you have your pre-lunch, yes. And what do you have for lunch, you could carry maybe a chapati or sabji, dal and rice but just ensure that you have good ample amounts of protein and fibre through your dal and vegetables. If you are eating out, if you are in a meeting or your ordering from a canteen, what you eat, call for a dal- khichdi, for idli- sambar along with the chutney, yes because coconut is rich in medium chain triglycerides, is good in essential fatty acids, protein and fibre this exactly what we want, you could have fish curry and rice but do have a bowl of salad or sabzi with it. To give you your fibre dose you could have chana masala along with tandoori roti, if you are ordering from outside but do have it with a bowl of salad, avoid vegetables which are rich in gravy because they are full of fat and they are devoid of protein. And if you are carrying your own dabba, if you are having wheat chapati it is also always advisable this is my quick tip that I am going to give you is to add little bit of soya bean or brown chana atta or little sattu atta to your wheat atta and to ensure that your wheat atta is thick jada, mota aata, so that it contains all the fibre and that is the key essence to maintaining your weight because the more amount of fibre in your diet the fibre extracts all the fat from the body and it gives you good satiety value, yes. So after lunch please ensure within half an hour to 1 hour of your lunch to sip on your green tea, there are many advantages of green tea, more so for us, women are it extracts any extra fat from the diet and it aids in digestion this is what we want to keep healthy and fit. And after 2 to 3 hours of lunch 4 to 6 is the major time when we binge or we cringe to eat something which is excessively high in fat or which is very tasty. Now how do you curb that 4 to 6 please ensure that you eat something? If you are eating out ensure if you can share your mail with somebody you could have as simple as an Idli, Dosa, Dhokla, Sandwich, but share it with somebody and remember the protein and fibre rules. So if you are having your sandwich have it with that slice of cheese or have it with the paneer or have it with the chicken along with vegetables, if you are having your Idli have it with the Sambar but share it with somebody because that is not your dinner it's your pre-dinner. So having some snacks between 4 to 6 as simple as of fruit or roasted chana and peanuts or nuts or a glass of chach or as complicated as some snacks which are ordering from outside that ensures that you don't binge in dinner. Now, what happens the key to maintaining your weight is to keep your dinner right because as the day progresses a metabolic rate of the body goes down and our fat burn capacity goes down and the body capacity to store fat increases because we are just reaching our bedtime. So this that will ensure that don't binge for a dinner. Also if you are into a night shift job then all the more important to eat some snacks at 4 to 6, so that even if you are having a late dinner, you have your energy levels in good shape, you have good energy levels to last you for the night. Now dinner remembers the dinner has to be at least 2-hour prior sleeping and keep it as light and as simple as possible. I wanted to eat your rice or roti for dinner but have either not both and I would prefer if you could have a Bakri made out of bajra and jowar, makai or nakshi because this Bakri’s not just give you a lot of satiety but they contain calcium iron, good amount of minerals and fibres which is very important for us women. If you want to prevent in future cases of osteoporosis, heart diseases or weak joints and limbs please ensure you have lot of these Bakri’s along with vegetables and good amount of dal because that will ensure that your energy levels are a good you don't have iron deficiency anaemia and you don't have protein deficiency and also along with that it gives you a lot of minerals, yes because we all we women menstruate every month so we lose a lot of blood along with minerals. So all these Bakri’s ensure they give you a lot of minerals in the diet and along with that ensure that the dal is not always yellow in colour but please bring more colour to your dals as by eating a lot of different variety of pulses, which Indian soil has in abundance like chole, rajma chawli, watana, Waal, akkha masoor, akkha urad, yes. So please do aware with only yellow dal but bring more colour to your plate with adding as many pulses and yes it's very important to eat pulses and there is a myth that we should not eat pulses at night. If your pulses are soaked well if you are cooking your pulses with a good amount of hing, jeera powder and lemon juice and ginger and garlic you will ensure that the sprouts do not give you the gas or discomfort but instead it gives you lot of satiety and feeling of fullness and happiness. So the dinner has to be light if you can't cook and another fresh set of fresh vegetables you can have the lunch’s vegetable in your dinner but do sure you have some vegetables or salad or soup. So remember change is the door which we can open only and only from inside and nobody can push you from outside.

So you have to be the change for yourself for your own good because it's never too late or never too early to start eating and living a healthy life.

So embrace womanhood because you my dear women are superhuman.

For more information feel free to contact me on lybrate.com.