Contest: "Malnutrition in Children"
Hi there,
I hope I met you well, sound and hearty. It is a beautiful Wednesday morning here in Nigeria and I am glad to come your way this week, I'm still friend of yours @tripple-e.
I appreciate @suboohi for organizing this contest on "malnutrition in children". As this is prevalent in our society, you'll see children looking kwashiorkor because of lack of essential nutrients in the body.
Malnutrition can affect people of all ages but I think the people who are very vulnerable to it are children and pregnant women.
Follow me as I'm going to share my idea on this topic through the contest questions;
👉The problems that children can face due to malnutrition?.
First of all, let's look at the meaning of malnutrition:- Is an imbalance of nutrients that the body needs to function well. These imbalance can be termed as insufficient or excessive. And these imbalance can happen in two ways;
Undernutrition and Overnutrition.
Undernutrition: is when you don't get enough or the essential nutrients needed to make the body system function well. This can result in poor dieting, lack of sufficient food intake While
Overnutrition: is when you have an excess calories or nutrients in the body. This can also cause problems to the body. For instance: obesity.👇
That's why everything should be in moderation.
Now let's see the problems that children can face due to this malnutrition.
1: Malnutrition can make the children to have problem in their growing process, it will make them become stunted in heights and very thin too in body size, thereby affecting their weight and these can weaken their muscles and bone.
2: Lack of adequate or proper nutrients makes it difficult for children to fight infections, because malnutrition weaken their immune systems and this can make them to fall sick frequently.
3: Malnutrition in Children can hinder their cognitive development; because the brain needs a good quality of nutrients to function well, so if they are not feeding well, it can leads to a lower IQ, dullness in learning and so on.
4: Malnourished children can become aggressive and finds everything around them irritating. They say "an hungry man is an angry man" 😀😀. They finds it difficult to concentrate. Thereby having behavioural problems.
5: Malnutrition in Children can be fatal if not treated immediately, it can increase the risk of death in children.
👉Share the factors contributing to malnutrition?
Malnutrition can be classified into main ways
• Dietary factors: This can be in the quality and amount of food a person takes into his/her body. While
• Health factors; Has to do with the body being able to absorb the nutrients if food into the system.
Factors under dietary are:-
• Poverty: Aha! This is a major cause of malnutrition, as people living in poverty won't have the privilege of accessing quality and nutritious food. Or they may not have food at all to eat.
• Another factor is, there are no enough affordable food items maybe due to economic instability of a country, therefore nutritious food became scarce.
• Poor diet is another factor: even if people have what to eat but if they don't eat proper essential nutrients needed for body growth and good health, they eat in vain.
Health factors:
• Diseases like diarrhoea and respiratory infections can cause someone to loose appetite and not also have the ability to absorb nutrients into the body.
• Chronic diseases can also cause malnutrition, diseases like HIV/Aids, cancer. Can make the body system of a person not to be able to absorb nutrients.
• Another cause of malnutrition is having mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety can make a person loss appetite, thereby leading to malnourishment.
👉How can we prevent a child from these issues?
There are several ways to prevent a child from Malnutrition; these are:
Through dieting: Giving them proper nutrients of food such as vegetables, fruits and good source of proteinous food like beans, fish and meat can aid their growth process.
Through breastfeeding: this is ideal for newborn babies as breast milk contain all the nutrients to boast a child immune system. So it is highly recommended.👇
By providing good hygiene and health care: taking care of the child in the process of deworming, vaccinations can prevent sickness that can worsen Malnutrition.
By educating the families and guardians on nutritional practices through supporting education.
👉you can give suggestions to improve health care of children in developing countries?
1: I'll suggest that proper access to clean water and sanitation facilities especially in the rural areas should be provided to curb the spread of waterborne diseases.
2: I'll also encourage and suggest childhood immunization; as vaccines are powerful tool in preventing diseases that might surface later in the child system.👇
3: I will also advice that government should implement educational programs that would anchor on Malnutrition and teach the people the right dietary supplement and plans to take.
4: This one is very important, government should endeavor to improve our health care facilities and hire qualified professionals especially in the area of children welfare.
In conclusion: The good news about Malnutrition is that it is treatable and can also be prevented with proper access to nutritious food and proper health care, so don't panic.
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https://twitter.com/EdetEmily4439/status/1772949784514474389?t=LW0_fKquvUASwAfUkKgP9A&s=19
Well scripted and I enjoyed reading it. But you see that factors of dietary, poverty has really dealt with some family, some family can't even afford garri for their household not to talk about getting all those vegetables, fruits and the likes... God will help us.
I wish you success in your post.
God will help us dear, thank you for stopping by
Waw, this interesting, I remember back then in school when we see a student who looks so slim and tiny, we we'll conclude that its kwashiorkor, which means the person lacks the necessary nutrients needed in the body. Sometimes from my own perspective, malnutrition can be caused by inability to eat on time. I remember when someone had ulcer and he's was surprised when the doctor told him that he needs to eat, not just to eat, but on time. That's my own view. Anyway good luck 🤞@tripple-e.
Thank you for your contribution and good wishes