1 | Feed Your Child Well: Prevent Pneumonia Feed Your Child Well: Prevent PneumoniaShobha Shukla, CNS Pneumonia is the leading global killer of chil dren under five, responsible for almost 1.6 million deaths per year, which is about one-fifth of all paediatric deaths around the world. Like other acute respiratory infections, pneumonia targets the world’s most vulnerable children—those who are poor and mal/undern ourished. The burden of pn eumonia in the de veloping world is nearly 10 times that of developed world In low income countries, pneumonia kills 7320 out of 100,000 children below 5 years of age, as compared to just 34 in developed countries. In South A sia and Sub Sahar an Africa 21% of all deaths in children are due to pneumonia. According to the Acute Respiratory Infections Atlas 2010, lack of food contributes to 44% ofdeaths from pneumonia in children globally. The prevalence, of childhood pneumonia is very high in India, and claims the lives of nearly 43,000 children every year. Proper nutrition is crucial to supporting the body’s natural defences, and in helping to reduce the effects of a disease once it is contracted. There is a general consensus amongst doctors that malnutrition makes children immune suppressed, thus making them an easy target for a host of diseases, including pneumonia. Although poverty does lead to under nutrition, sometimes lack of knowledge about cheap but nutritive food items also prevents parents from providing a p roper diet to their child. This is particularly true of urban families where processed and fast foods are becoming an integral part of c hildren’s daily diet. It is not uncommon even for urban slum dwellers to opt for greasy, fatty foods instead of the simple and highly nutritive, dal-roti. Dr Gourdas Choudhuri, Professor and Head Gastroenterology Department, Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, agrees that malnourished children are more vulnerable to pneumonia. Dr Choudhuri is a strong advocate of healthy living in children and feels that, “Lifestyle disorders play a crucial role in management ofdiseases like pneumonia. Obese children are also malnourished and so have a compromised immune system. So it is important to ensure that children keep an ideal body weight and use the sports field and/or do plenty ofexercise to keep their lungs healthy, in o rder to avoid the onset ofpneumonia and other respirator y diseases.”Dr Dinesh Chandra Pandey, a Specialist in Paediatric Medicine at Nelson Hospital of Paediatrics and Neonatal Medicine, said that till some years back pneumonia was less prevalent in affluent homes as compared to poor families. But protein-energy malnutrition, overcrowding, indoor /outdoor pollution and life style changes are taking their toll in the upper strata ofsociety as well, where incidences of pneumonia and di arrhoea are on the rise. He lamented the popularity of fast foods which are poor in qualitative nutrition and are making children not only malnourished, but immune compromised also. So, pneumonia is no longer confined to poor households
