Micronutrient to Fight Against Hidden Hunger

Does your diet include the optimum level of nutrients and minerals required to keep your brain functioning at its best? Do you give your kids or your newborn baby food which helps not only in their physical development but mental development as well?

Raising kids is an uphill task. If you are first time parents, then you must know about the diet which is necessary for growth and development of a newborn baby.

I am sure you must be searching for all parenting information and child fitness. Now, if the baby is premature, in such case breastfeeding is most important as it provides immunity for the risks related to premature birth, like infections, jaundice. So if the child gets sufficient micronutrients from day one of the birth, the child grows well, physically, socially and most important mentally.

What are micronutrients & why it is important?

In India, infants do not get the right amount of micronutrients. Micronutrients are a group of nutrients which are required in trace amounts for healthy growth and development.  If your child lacks these micronutrients— it is referred as “Hidden Hunger”. Hidden hunger has affected nearly 2 billion individuals or precisely speaking one in three people worldwide. Thus hidden hunger is kind of undernutrition that occurs; when intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals, such as (Zinc, Iodine and iron) are too low to sustain good health and development.

It’s clinically evident that most rural kids coming from underprivileged families are malnourished, while urban kids are suffering from ‘hidden hunger’.

According to National Nutrition of Monitoring Bureau of India, even healthy looking children are not healthy, because they are eating junk or fast food, and thus these kids have the biochemical deficiency of micronutrients. To prevent hidden hunger, the only option is to provide plentiful micronutrient food and increasing dietary diversity, starting from infant age.

Shrouded symptoms of hidden hunger /micronutrient deficiency can be detected at an early stage. Since micronutrient deficient is slow, the symptoms take time to appear. In the initial phase, everything seems to be natural, but as the child grows, this micronutrient deficiency shows adverse effects of malnutrition on height and weight.

In Indian food, most of the food items are rich in macronutrients and not micronutrients– that’s why it’s critical for Indian parents to take adequate measures to ensure consistent development. Parents believe that my kid is tall, he is fit and healthy, but they never realise the significance of mental growth as compared to physical development.  Brain development is entirely dependent on food which a child eats.” It is rightly said “You are what you think you eat”. So basically if you eat correctly, you will also think properly.

How to keep child’s immune system healthy.

Most kids suffer from stunted growth cognitive delays. During six months of breastfeeding initially they get the micronutrients, but after that, it decreases a lot.

The other reason behind malnutrition can be the wavy pattern of eating meals. The habit of eating heavy breakfast and light dinner should be inculcated from day 1 of child life. This also keeps your child immune system healthy as well.

First 1000 days of child’s life are most important for their brain and physical body development. If not taken care at the early age of childhood, it becomes irreversible and affects the child health later on. Consuming food rich in micronutrient and macronutrient helps the child to attain a healthy brain and healthy body.

Which products we should eat to increase micronutrients?

In a nutshell, micronutrients play a vital role in the holistic development of a child. Now the authorities must take steps to make sure those infants get proper food fortification. Usually, the staple food of a region depends on its soil. If the particular region lacks the specific micronutrient then, that deficiency has to be fulfilled from adding in other foods and supplements. Make sure the child eats cereals and cereals based products, milk and milk products, nuts, oils and other beverages which have micronutrients in right proportions.

Now it’s up to parents and governing bodies to concentrate on micronutrient deficiency too. Let’s pledge that we end up malnutrition in India for better brain development.