Healthy food habits

I had read that “The gut is a second brain”, but for Aakash the gut is “his” brain. Literally it dictates every action of Aakash’s behaviour. Before I understood this equation, I didn’t have any clue about his hyperactivity and other behavioural issues. Aakash faces sensory issues too. But the problems we face because of sensory issues is much less compared to the gut issues.

Once we realised that the gut issues are the trigger for his hyperactivity and behavioural issues, we had changed his food habits.

Before I explain how we made Aakash adopt to healthy food habits, here is a glimpse of how he was in the initial stages.

We parents called Aakash as “Anna Paravai” (it’s a type of Swan, I have read about this bird in the story books. The speciality of this bird is, it could separate the water from milk and drink milk alone). Aakash was like this bird in the earlier times, however much we tried to give healthy food like vegetables and fruits, he can spit it out of his mouth. For example, Noodles was his favourite food once, and I used to add vegetables like beans, carrot and peas, assuming that I could feed the vegetables along with noodles. But Aakash was so clever to eat only noodles and take out the vegetable out from his mouth. We had tried various ways to make him to eat fruits and vegetables, but the result was the same. The fruits and vegetable would come out of his mouth. That’s why we called him as “Anna Paravai”. Then, Aakash used to crave for sugary items like chocolate, Cake, fizzy drinks and also junk foods like Pizza, burger, chips etc.
And here is our journey of how Aakash has changed his preference to have butter milk, lemon juice and tender coconut instead of fizzy drinks and also fruits, vegetables instead of junk items.

Step 1:
I had eliminated the following food items from our routine
• Sugary items and fizzy drinks/ any sugar loaded juices (I would suggest eager parents to research the link between blood sugar and insulin. You could google this by use the key words “vicious cycle of sugar and insulin”. Leaving out the diabetic perspective checkout other impacts it can have on the child like “Sugar Crash”). You can understand this even better from your paediatrician or dietician. If your child is craving for sugary items, then the understanding about blood glucose and insulin would give you an insight of how to handle it. Since Aakash was so obsessed with chocolate and another sweet items, this knowledge helped me a lot.
• Now we have managed his sugar craving with fruits and vegetable like Guava, Chikkoo, Muskmelon, Pomegranate, Carrot, Pumpkin and Beetroot.
• We had reduced dairy products, items made from refined flour like biscuits, bread etc and also fried items. Simply because Aakash’s tender stomach couldn’t process these items.

Step 2:
Found some foods are allergic to him and started avoiding or reducing those quantities in his diet. For example
 Moong dal
 Potato and cabbage
 Paneer (tofu too)
 Tea (green tea too)
 Processed/readymade package items
 Idly chutney powder
 Chicken (Whenever we give, we limit it to one time in a day is fine for him, if he has it for twice in a day like for breakfast and lunch then he would show some behaviour)
 Snacks made from besan flour
One Note here: I usually never completely eliminate any kind of food from his diet as that leads to craving. When we step out into outside world many kinds of foods are easily visible, besides TV ads also keep recalling some food.

Step 3:
Worked on his sensory issue
Aakash had sensitivity in the mouth and hand. We did the following to desensitise his sensitivity in the mouth
• We had used soft cloth to gently massage the gums and other areas inside the mouth. And, the cheeks gently with hands.
• Once Aakash developed the habit of biting our fingers, we had shifted to “BABY FINGER TOOTHBRUSH” to massage.
• Aakash couldn’t tolerate to touch items like chutney, gravy, curd rice. One point here we need to understand is, he didn’t have aversion about items like chutney or curd rice. He loved to eat, but because of his sensory issue he could not touch it. Once I identified this issue, I encourage him to have these foods with spoon.

Step 4:
• Increased the water consumption (since water keeps our body hydrated, aids digestion and mainly it would flush out the unwanted things from our body)
• Increased the physical activity (this would improve the appetite)

Step 5:
• Check for worms in the stomach.

Followed by the above steps, I had set three goals
• Introducing healthy foods
• Make Aakash sit and eat
• Eat by himself
• Introducing healthy foods
 The first thumb rule we follow at any meal time is to switch off the TV and avoid any type of gadget.
 Have a Fixed timings (like Breakfast 8.30 am, lunch at 1.00 pm, Dinner at 8.00pm)
 Prepare the kid for the meal time by say “Breakfast time”, “Lunch time”, “Fruit time”, “snacks Time” and “Dinner Time”. Which means give a name to each meal time and announce it to them at least half an hour before the actual meal time.
 Prepare visuals for each meal type. (for example, For Breakfast, I had prepared idli, dosa picture with a written word “Breakfast” below the picture)

This phase, that is introducing a new food to the kids could be tough to both parents and kids. But we parents must be little persistent to achieve this stage. Here are the steps I had followed when I had introduced new foods to Aakash.

• Didn’t withdraw the junk foods / their favourite food in a day. I did the withdrawal process gradually.

• Aakash was ok to have banana and pomegranate but not other fruits. So, during the fruit time I had either banana or pomegranate for him along with JUST A PIECE OF PAPAYA OR MUSKMELON or whatever the fruit I want to introduce. In the process of preparing him that is half an hour before the fruit time, I used to say, today we are going to have papaya and banana. The thought behind this was, instead of surprising them with a new food and disappointing them, giving heads up to the kid would help them.

• The kid would throw tantrum or refuse to have even a piece of papaya. Give them some time, rising voice or force feeding wouldn’t help. Simply say FIRST have papaya (that is any new food you are introducing now) THEN you could have banana. (the food they like, or they can accept)

• Don’t give the same fruit daily, show variation. Gradually increase the number of pieces.

• One other thing I did was “Modelling”. For example, when I introduced spinach, I had started with a tea spoon of spinach along with his favourite vegetable carrot poriyal. To model him, even I had a tea spoon of spinach in my plate. And by saying, see mummy is having spinach, you could also have it. This approach had also helped us.

• If your child is a picky eater, have the food the child prefers to have like a reinforcer. Ask the child to have a little new food item and immediately give them their preferred food.

• If your child likes to have junk foods, don’t stop giving those items all at once. Tell the child, if you eat the Food now (the healthy food), I would give your favourite chocolate (or so and so) in the evening. Slowly make it two days once. And then move it to the weekend.

• Keep one thing in mind, we would not be completely able to avoid the junk food items. Since Kids are watching Tv, whenever we go out, they watch others having it, even in schools’ other kids may have those kinds of food items. But we could educate them.

• Understanding about the healthy food and unhealthy food for a kid could be difficult. What I am doing with Aakash now is, associating the unhealthy food with the sickness he had before. For example, I would tell him that if you eat too much of fried food you may get stomach ache, or you may vomit like the other day. This approach helps us to limit the amount.

• Whatever you do to change the food habit, the kids would take their own time. So, don’t keep short time frame to achieve your goal. Aakash has started to verbalise at the age of 6, he was independent in writing at the age of 10, he was to the barber shop for hair cut at the age of 11. So, give your child time for them to undergo the transition.

We are here not to prove anything to anybody. We parents are working with our kids to make them independent in the future. So be patience with your kids to achieve this goal.

I just want to make another point here, you parents need not try the strategies in the same way I had shared here. All the approaches I had presented here are the way Aakash needed it. Your child’s need and the ability to understand may be different from Aakash. Device your own ideas based your kid’s needs. Be patience to make your child eat healthy to stay healthy.