Thank you Studio kids for inviting me to this session on health and nutrition for kids. It was great interacting with concerned mothers who were anxious for their children’s health.
I hope I was able to resolve their queries .I appreciate the efforts put in by Yamini and Abhishek to select such an important topic which helped to bust myths of parents. The internet is flooded with both right and wrong information regarding nutrition, which was confusing for the parents. For eg milk is overrated as a complete food and often parents overfeed milk to kids not realizing on the contrary it kills their appetite.
One problem that most of the parents were facing, that kids were not chewing food and keeping it in the mouth for hours. The main reason behind this is overfeeding and pampering. We need to follow a timely meal pattern and eat our meals after a gap of at least 4 hours. I advised the parents not to use food as a punishment or reward. The dining table should not turn into a battle field and changes in the diet have to be gradual and peaceful. I believe a child is fit only when he is physically as well as mentally strong. We as parents have to be a role model for the kids and should try to encourage and involve them in buying groceries and taking interest in cooking. I recommended all parents to spend some time in the kitchen and try to enroll the kids too. This teaches the kids the importance of food and the efforts put in to cook it. I even gave information to the parents of our traditional immunity booster foods like amaltas and amla,and how to consume them. My focus point was the importance of local grown vegetables and fruits especially in this time of COVID 19 as they are fresh and much higher on the nutritional scale.
We need to understand that health habits for kids are like seeds which bloom into healthy adults in future.
Watch the complete session on Youtube by clicking: