DIET FOR CHILDREN

While prescribing a calorie-based diet for the young ones, following points may be borne in mind:
1) If dietary restrictions are put on a child, it should always be kept in mind that the young one has been subjected to this agonizing malady and should not be made to suffer either mentally or physically. Further his diet should be designed in such a way that his needs for maturation, growth and development must not be hampered.
2) IDDM is a serious problem for the child and his parents, because he has to take injections regularly and after injections have been taken, he must be given a high calorie-based diet otherwise his blood sugar level will fall and hypoglycaemia stage may ensue. Food, prescribed for the child, must meet his physical, sport-related exercise based needs.
3) They should eat before and if needed during period of competition and there is no reason why a diabetic child should not participate in sports, attend to his normal study courses and other daily chores but the only pre-requisite is that his diet must be tackled to meet all his such and all other requirements. No diet should be prescribed which fails to meet a child’s requirements of body, might, intellect and an all-round development.

Note:- How much calorie is required per day for a certain type of diabetics, can be determined and decided by a dietician and physician, keeping in view the factors mentioned heretofore. But, for the convenience of the patients, diet charts, based on calorie-based diets are merely suggestive and do not and cannot have relevance to actual calorie requirement of a person. At best, they are only guiding indictors and should also be deemed to be so. The readers may refer to such charts to get a first-hand and basic knowledge and guidance about diet and calories, given at end of this book.

SUGAR DISORDER DUE TO ENDOCRINE GLAND’S MALFUNCTIONING

Following endocrine glands are said to cause diabetes, if their secretion is not normal.
1. pancreas
2. Thyroid _ This aspect will be dealt with, in details, later on.
3. Pituitary
4. Adrenal.