Good health

Factors contributing to good health are regular exercise, proper nutrition, stress reduction and weight management.

The focus seems to be on admission to a good “school” and getting good “rankings/grades” while overlooking the other yardsticks for a successful future.

It is increasingly recognized that young adults are having heart attacks, diabetes etc in their “20’s”.

To prevent this, we recommend lifestyle changes in early childhood, so they become lifetime habits.

The changes are to be adopted by the whole family and not the child only.

Swimming, jogging, playing badminton etc as a family should improve yours and your child’s future.

Obesity

Obesity = increased fat in the body

It is a balance between energy consumed and energy spent.

Energy intake in excess of requirements is stored in fat cells.

The number of fat cells are set up in childhood. After that they remain constant in adulthood.
Obese children could have double the number of fat cells than the non obese children.

Children who are overweight / obese by age 2-5 years are more likely to be overweight / obese adults.

Our efforts should be to avoid overweight / obesity in early childhood.

Please don’t force feed a child.

Television and Screen time

Spending time with any "gadget" with a screen is called "screen time".

Children are exposed to smartphone, iPad, Laptop etc. Mainly for entertainment as well as for distraction at feeding time.

Either the child actively watches or the TV remains switched on in the background while playing/sleeping in the room.

Screen time is very harmful for children's mental development.

It affects

•speech and language development
•social skills
•imagination
•poor sleep quality
•aggressive behaviour
•poor attention span
•And causes Obesity

A general rule is

0 - 2 years - NO screen time
3 - 5 years - 1 hour / day