ZINC, the second most important micronutrient after IRON

Zinc deficiency is recognized as a public health problem. A lot of evidence has been generated in the last two decades establishing this fact. This problem pertains especially to children less than five years of age.

Many other factors can contribute to zinc deficiency, low dietary intake and lack of diversity in food offered to young children being a predominant factor. The transient deterioration in zinc and as a result of stool losses in childhood diarrhea can be improved by zinc supplementation.

Zinc plays an important role in healthy and disease. While iron deficiency can be judged clinically and proved easily, zinc deficiency is difficult to diagnose clinically, unless it is severe. However, prevalence of sub-clinical zinc deficiency in Indian population has been estimated to be around 30%.Recurrent infections may be the only subtle manifestation in children and its role in prevention and treatment of diarrhea is well established. Enthusiasm has led to correlate zinc deficiency to pneumonia, sepsis &altering growth and cognitive development but that has not been validated. It is necessary to adopt a cautious approach to consider zinc in isolation and excess of zinc may hinder absorption of copper and iron.

Parents are a role model for their children. Children adopt behavior from observation. Parent can either be a good or bad example. It helps to examine one’s own behavior and access the following questions:

• Do we snack very frequently in a day?

• Do we watch TV while eating?

• Do we skip breakfast?

• Do we eat whenever you stressed out?

• Do we dessert at every meal?

• Do we have soda rather than milk or water with your meals?

These are the behavior your children may pick up, which can affect their eating habits now and in the future. Foods are never classified as either good food or bad food. This can restrict eating or lead to negative attitude towards food. Healthy foods are those that are nutrient-rich or have a large amount of key vitamins and minerals. You do not have to give up your favorite foods, to eat a healthy diet; just try to have your Colorful fruits and vegetables have more nutrients, bean nuts, beans, low fat and fat free dairy and nuts are examples of ideal foods.

Obesity is a multi system disease it affects multiple organs like Heart and blood vessels, endocrine glands, airways and lungs, GI tract and liver, neurological system, muscular skeletal system and skin. BP monitoring should be a part of routine health check up of even normal children. Essential hypertension begins in children. Even a mind of a person can be affected by obesity leading to poor self-esteem, anxiety, depression, disturbed peer relationship, social stigmatization, erective dysfunction and hypogonatism.

Children can eat anything they like and there should be no restriction in the quantity of food served to them. They should not be forced to eat what they do not like. Do not treat your child as special and give him or her one liter milk is boiled and made milk is boiled and made into 200ml or adding 4tsp of beverage in the place of one per cup of milk.

Children go to school for the first time for a whole day must be taught to eat on their own. Homemade food has to be sent along with them so that they do not eat available foods at school canteens because most of them contain only high carbohydrates and fats. Never skip breakfast. Skipping breakfast leads to overeating at the next meal and can lead to obesity.

Some common myths are; milk is fettering; cheese is milk in a crop, beetroot and watermelon are rich in iron, palak should not be taken at night, without giving eggs, a vegetarian diet cannot have good protein and watery vegetables cause a cold.

Zinc in the diet

The bioavailability of zinc from the cereals based on phytate rich vegetarian diet is limited. Certain food preparation technique can be used to reduce the finding of zinc by phytates and increase its bioavailability. These include soaking beans, grains, and seeds in water for several hours before cooking them and allowing sitting after soaking until sprouts from.

Vegetarians can also increase their zinc intake by consuming more leavened grain products(such as bread) than unleavened products (such as crackers) because leavening partially breaks down the phytate, thus the body absorbs more zinc from leavened grains than unleavened grains.

Source: Article is self created by Jatin Bhakoo, click4college specialist

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