If pregnancy marks one of the most impassioned and critical times in a woman’s life, motherhood makes it one of the busiest. From caring for the child as they grow to ensure they get complete nutrition in their growing years it becomes quite a task for a mum. And one of the trickiest parts can be getting your children to eat properly and #GrowRight. With my two kids even, I have had my share of ups and downs and wouldn’t shy away from agreeing that I am still learning every day. As my kids are growing by the day I wonder and work on ways to ensure they eat healthy and increase their appetite. I had recently started tracking their growth using PediaSure’s Grow Right tracker and began to notice the nutritional gaps they had. It made me realize how important it is to track their growth to be sure that their height and weight are appropriate for their age. Monitoring growth also gives us parents a guide to ensure that our kids are healthy. The Grow Right tracker helped me identify more accurately the gaps fussy eating had caused. Using the insights I got, in this post, I am sharing some of the ways on how to boost appetite in kids in India.
Increasing your children’s appetite can be tricky, especially if they find food unappealing or are struggling to eat anything and everything that’s served on their plate. And as a mother of two kids myself, one thing I can for sure say that it’s not always the food preferences as a reason for the loss of appetite. There could be various underlying reasons for the loss of appetite. You need to figure the reasons and then you could work on ways to improve it.
Here are some causes of loss of appetite
- Dietary allergies, food intolerance
- Digestive problems like constipation, indigestion, or any other bowel issues
- Seasonal illness like cold, cough, or flu that results in tastelessness and low appetite
- Continuous eating and the improper gap between the meals
- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies that help in digestion and increase appetite in kids
- Lack of physical activities
I am sure we all are aware of some of these issues. But have you ever wondered how a lack of physical activity can also be one of the reasons for decreased and poor appetite? Well, a sedentary lifestyle is indeed one of the reasons why a child might not feel hungry and would create a fuss about eating.
In the growing years, kids need a lot of outdoor play for the overall development and it also helps to work towards a better appetite. I still remember the time in our childhood when I used to play more than 2 hours daily and used to rush home like a hungry child. To help boost appetite in kids they must spend regular time in physical activities.
I have been quite particular about my kids playing out and not spending too much time indoors. Along with physical exercise, we also ensure both the kids get their daily dose of nutrition with a glass of PediaSure that is enriched with Vit B12, Folic Acid, Iodine, Choline & Taurine for brain development. It provides complete, balanced nutrition for children and also acts as an immunity booster which in turn helps in overall growth as well.
For your child to grow well, compliment his/her diet with lots of outdoor play. Limit the children’s screen, video time, and try to engage in playtime. As a parent, you could start your child’s day with simple exercises, yoga asanas, breathing exercises in the fresh air, and get them involved in some structured sports that make them sweat and burn energy. All these physical exercises are sure to boost the diet of kids and they will surely be going to eat well.
Physical exercise is an imperative step to help boost the appetite of kids. You could also try these things to ensure your fussy eater is taking interest in eating.
- Compulsory Breakfast- Eating a healthy breakfast after a good night’s sleep, rejuvenates the metabolism and is bound to increase the appetite.
- Iron-rich foods- Iron deficiency can lead to loss of appetite in kids thus ensure that you give iron-rich food to kids daily. Don’t overfeed your child and give him/her food every 2-3 hours that is rich in nutrition and healthy too. In every feed, you could offer varieties and different tastes for him to take on liking for the same.
- Limit dairy products– Don’t overfeed your child with dairy products. Limit it to twice a day. So, if your child loves milk don’t give milk throughout the day. Morning and evening glass of milk supplemented with PediaSure will do wonders for your child and ensure complete nutrition too.
- Appetite boosting foods– You could introduce appetite boosting foods to give the much-needed kick to your child’s fussy eating habits. Give these foods at regular intervals of 2-3 hours and see the difference.
- Stop intermittent munching– Chips, chocolates, biscuits, and other snacks should not be given unnecessarily. Such intermittent munching on unhealthy food kills the appetite and thus the child doesn’t want to eat on time and mainly doesn’t want to eat healthy food.
To ensure the proper growth of your child do not make mealtimes a struggle for you and your child. You may strongly run the risk of setting a negative impact and a negative mood around mealtime. Every child is different and their body mechanism works differently. Do try the points mentioned above and also ensure that your kids are not glued to the digital world much. Urge them to play. Physical activity will cause an energy deficit in the body & in-turn the body will want you to replenish the energy. Your active child will drink plenty of fluids & will want to eat more.
I have been trying these things for both my kids and have seen a remarkable difference in their diet and eating habits. Just be patient, track your child’s growth and focus on bringing a routine to the day in which physical exercise is given due importance to boost the appetite of kids. You will be amazed at how monitoring growth can help you create the changes your child needs. Are you ready to take the #FirstStepToGrowRight?
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Read More on ways to improve the resilience in kids here.
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True it is very important to identify what our children our lacking. Good this growth tracker helps.
Definitely physical activity and appropriate balanced nutrition makes all the difference when it comes to growth and development of a child. However it’s easier said than done.
Fussy eaters often lack in nutrition which can hamper their normal growth. Your post is going to be helpful to moms to make sure their kids are healthy and physically active too.
Physical activity definitely is important to boost appetite.
Thanks for sharing these pointers
great tips dear and very helpful for parents who are struggling to providing proper nutrition to their kids. I am glad that you had mentioned that every kids is different and it is very important for parents to understand their kids individual response for each step they had taken for their well being. making kids physically active and limiting snack items always work great with fussy eaters.
Appetite boosting foods and Stoping intermittent munching are great points. Being at home most of the time this has become little difficult but I agree being physically active can definitely improve their appetite.
I so agree Rakhi, this is such an eyeopening post for the moms of young kids, a must read I must say
Good informative post for we parents luckily my daughter never trouble me while eating but will definitely share with my sister as her kids always trouble her for eating.
These are some helpful pointers u have mentioned to develop food interest in fussy eaters. Also a nice tool to track their growth.
That’s a very detailed post. I make sure my kids have two healthy meals (lunch and dinner) and their snacks are also homemade and healthy to ensure they have a good nutritional intake. Also keep them active with physical activity is important to make them hungry. I too avoid unnecessary food inbetween unless we are out to avoid junk or unhealthy intake at the wrong time. Pediasure indeed is an added boost to the diet.
My daughter is a big fussy eater. Reading your post I could totally relate to it and it will be really helpful for me to inculcate these points in my life.
Identifying the need of the nutrition and then providing the same to the fussy eaters is a challenge in itself. Good points suggested in the post that avoiding the munching of non healthy food should be stopped and appetite increasing food should be served.
It’s important to know about the growth of your child especially if you have a fussy eater kid. Pediasure tracker really helps to know where our child lacks and we can work to improvise things.
Not eating properly directly affects the nutrition and growth. This post is very helpful to keep a balance nutrition and encouraging kids for physical activities.
It’s really informative for all parents who deal with fussy eaters and are not able to keep track of kids growth
Giving appetite boosting food to kids is a great tip for parents with fussy eaters. It is important that we keep our kids physically active and look after their nutrition. Only then they can grow right.
Well written post, Rakhi. It is indeed important to engage in physical activity and pay attention to their nutritional intake for adequate growth.
Glad to know about this growth tracker . We should keep an eye on kids overall growth. I too give pediasure to my son.
I remember the times when Ayaansh threw tantrums to eat. It was only after I consulted my pediatrician, I could resolve the issue. I agree that outdoor play indeed makes a difference in eating patterns in children. Thankfully, we have the Growth Tracker from PediaSure now to understand about our kids growth.
This is a very well written post, Rakhi. Growth tracker definitely helps. I too am tracking my son’s growth using Pediasure’s growth tracker
Being active definitely helps in loss of appetite issues. Sports and activities can work out a great deal. Even I use the PediaSure Growth Tracker for my daughter.
I have a fussy eater at home and some of the tips that you suggested I will surely bring in to practice like proper gaps between meal and lessen intermittent munching.
Loved reading this, Rakhi. Limiting dairy products is indeed a good point, I have seen kids denying food and as an alternative, many parents tend to offer milk as a replacement meal. I use to do that too but later on realized it was making the food aversion more extreme and my kiddo hated trying any kind of new food texture or flavor.
Outdoor physical activities sure do play an important role in metabolic rate. The tracker is super helpful.
I completely agree. It’s important to understand the nutritional need of the kids and design their meal accordingly. Fussy eaters often lack in nutritions which hampers their growth. It hence becomes important to handle them in best possible manner. And nothing can beat the power of physical activities in a child’s life.
It definitely gets Difficult to ensure that the nutritional requirements of a fussy eating kid is met. Thanks for sharing such an insightful post.
Its not easy to manage a fussy eater. And we should encourage them more for outdoor activities. A glass of pediasure is a must. 🙂