Feed the Children !!!!(2)

Feed the Children

National Youth Day in India

National Youth Day in India was on 12th January

The birthday of Swami Vivekananda was on January 12 which is observed as National Youth Day in India.

In 2011, in an attempt to be able to effectively convey the message of Swamiji to everyone a group of professionals and students, have put together a 6-minute video introducing Swamiji and his message. The video captures parts of Swamiji's biography, his message and his vital contribution to India and the world.

You can visit the special National Youth Day website put up by the young professionals here.

46 per cent Indian children suffer from malnutrition

46 per cent Indian children suffer from malnutrition

Despite India's recent economic boom, at least 46 per cent of its children up to the age of three still suffer from malnutrition, making the country home to a third of the world's malnourished children, a recent study said.

Nothing that the country is an 'economic powerhouse but a nutritional weakling', the report by the British-based Institute of Development Studies, which incorporated papers by more than 20 analysts from India, said, "At least 46 per cent of children up to the age of three in India still suffer from malnutrition."

It's the contrast between India's fantastic economic growth and its persistent malnutrition which is so shocking," Lawrence Haddad, director of the IDS, told The Times.

The United Nations defines malnutrition as a state in which an individual can no longer maintain natural bodily capacities such as growth, pregnancy, lactation, learning abilities, physical work and resisting and recovering from disease.

The report said India will not meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal, of halving its number of hungry citizens till 2043, though it had committed in 2001 to reach it by 2015.

The report also highlighted the government's failure to improve basic living standards for most Indians despite its unprecedented economic growth since 2004.

"The boom has enriched a consumer class of about 5 crore people, but an estimated 88 crore people still live on less than $2 a day, many of them in conditions worse than those found in sub-Saharan Africa," it said.

It said that an average of 6,000 children died every day in India; 2,000 to 3,000 of them from malnutrition

The report said that one of the main problems was that millions of Indians were unable to hold government officials to account for delivering government feeding programmes, with bureaucrats frequently excluded large groups of individuals -- including those from the lower castes and women -- from government initiatives.

Michael Anderson, the head of Department of International Development in India, which will spend 500 million pounds on health and nutrition in India between 2008 and 2012, said, "There is no shortage of ideas about what to do to tackle malnutrition. But leadership from the top and joint action across the government are needed to turn these ideas into practical solutions. The challenge is urgent: the lives of millions of children depend on it."

Sources:   WHO, Encarta, Enc-09, MC, IWA, IANS

STROKE Awareness: Remember the 1st Three Letters.... S. T. R.

STROKE Awareness: Remember  the 1st Three Letters.... S. T. R.  

RECOGNIZING A STROKE 

 

 

Sometimes symptoms of a  stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately,  the lack of awareness spells disaster. The  stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage  when people nearby fail to recognize the  symptoms of a stroke. 

 

A  neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke  victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the  effects of a stroke....totally. He said  the trick was getting a stroke recognized,  diagnosed, and then getting the patient  medically cared for within 3 hours, which is  tough. 

Now doctors say a  bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three  simple questions: 

 

S  *Ask  the individual to SMILE. 
T  *Ask  the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE  (Coherently) 
(i.e. It is sunny out  today.) 
R *Ask  him or her to RAISE BOTH  ARMS. 

 

If  he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these  tasks, call emergency number immediately, describe the symptoms to the  dispatcher and/or take . 

 

New  Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your  Tongue 

 

NOTE:  Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the  person to 'stick' out his tongue.. If the tongue  is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the  other,   that is  also an indication of a  stroke. 

FEED THE CHILDREN

FEED THE CHILDREN

11 Ways to Get Portions Under Control

11 Ways to Get Portions Under Control

One of the biggest determining factors of weight loss success is portion control. On average, we eat way too much at meal time, and often our snacks are super-sized. It is very easy to overeat when oversized portions and all-you-can eat buffets surround us. For many people, food also acts as a drug. You can become addicted and need a bigger amount of food to satisfy your hunger.

A "portion" is how much food you choose to eat at one time. Portion size dramatically impacts the calories that you consume. Portion sizes began to increase in the 1980s and have been skyrocketing ever since. Dietitians agree that portion control is central to healthy eating and keeping our weight under control. Here are some tips that can help you in keeping your portion size under control at meal time and contribute to your overall health:

1. Eat High Quality, Not Quantity: Avoid fast foods and eat fiber-rich foods such as vegetables and cereals. These fiber-rich foods have the ability of making you feel fuller over a long period of time. Thus you eat less throughout the day if you have fiber rich food. Fast foods are stripped of nutrients, so your body will make you eat more calories in its hunt for nutrients. Replace chips and sweetened soft drinks with healthier raw veggies, fruits, whole-grain biscuits and low-fat cheese.
2. Don't Clean Your Plate: Some people will clear their plate no matter how much food is presented in front of them. This is bad habit when it comes to weight loss. By skipping on the leftovers, you'll save on a lot of calories.
3. Use Smaller Dishes: Our dish size is also increasing day by day. The common psychology is the bigger the plate, the more food you can put on it. Same is true for bowls and glasses. Using smaller dinnerware may help you consume fewer calories. Eating with a small spoon will help you eat more slowly and savor your meal.
4. Focus on Eating: Don't multitask when you are eating. Watching the TV or working on the computer leads to over eating. Try to sit down to dinner as a family, relax and savour your dinner.
5. Eat Regularly: Eating at regular intervals throughout the day is the best way to keep your metabolism high. If you wait until you're hungry, you're more likely to overindulge at the next meal. The ideal meal plan is to have three balanced meals and two snacks a day.
6. Drink water: Water keeps you hydrated to avoid overstuffing. It also reduces your appetite to some extent. Don't like water, have green tea. Drinking green tea, at least thirty-minutes before meal time, will help curb your appetite. However, other drinks like sodas and fruit juices can contain a lot of extra calories and carbohydrates.
7. Eat slowly: Slowing the pace a little gives your body time to send the message that you are full. So put your fork down between bites. Take time to savor each bite throughout your meal. 'Mindful eating' is a great way to help you with portion control.
8. Avoid Eating Out: Portion sizes at restaurants can be up to 4 times as big as they should be. Avoid eating out as much as possible. Also, do not visit a restaurant starving. This would lead to over eating. Even if you have to eat out ensure that you order fiber-rich foods and vegetables on the menu.
9. Don't eat out of the container: Don't eat directly out of large packages of snack foods. The larger the package, the more you are likely to eat. Take the food out of the bag or container and put it in a bowl or plate, and put the box or bag away. That way you can see exactly how much you're eating.
10. Count Calories: Weighing and measuring everything you eat helps in maintaining portion control. Make the measuring cup; spoons and weight scale your best friend. Read the labels carefully.
11. Share a meal: Share your meal with a dining partner. Both of you can share and still go away full. It's also a great way of socializing.

Cutting one's portion size can be a very efficient way to continue one's new health focus. Initially it will be tough but the results speak for themselves.

Source: LMT

Hunger still remains to be an everyday reality. Children from every generation valiantly but hopelessly struggle for their daily meal. Can you make a difference?

Hunger still remains to be an everyday reality. Children from every generation valiantly but hopelessly struggle for their daily meal. Can you make a difference?

The Hindu : Magazine / Columns : Childhoods of hunger and want / 14 Nov 2010

In much of rural India, hunger is still an everyday reality and often the only way out is debt-bondage…

Memories of a childhood lived with hunger are stark, and heartbreakingly different from those of all other children. Bansi Sabar from Bolangir in Orissa recalls that his father toiled hard from morning to evening as a bonded halia. He used to eat in his employers' home and would get 15 kg paddy for the whole month. “Whatever food I bring home is always insufficient for you,” his father would cry out in frustration. His mother, though sickly, used to gather different green leaves, flowers, kardi (smooth bamboo), tamarind and mangoes from the forest, which they ate with water-rice. “That was almost all water with a few grains of rice floating in it,” commented Bansi wryly. Many days they had to sleep hungry. Similarly, Drupathi Malik's mother used to collect all the rice they could manage to get in a day and put it in a container, mix it with salt and all the members except her would sit to eat from the same container. She explains that there was never much to justify use of different plates. Their father would allow the children to eat more and later any left over rice or water was eaten by her mother.

Heaviest burden

Destitute women and men whom I have spoken to in many parts of India testify that the burden their hearts finds hardest to bear is to be forced to deny food to one's children. A Sahariya tribal man in Baran, Rajasthan, laments that there are times when his children cry for food, and he feels so desperate that he wishes he could take out his own liver and offer it as nourishment for his children. Bansi Sabar has now grown to mourn the agony of four children who are always hungry. His wife begs for starch water left over after cooking rice from their neighbours for the children. Many days both of them fast to feed their children. His wife becomes weaker and weaker by the day, but she will still trek up the forest slopes to collect mahua and kardi to boil these for food, and her children would protest the foul taste and refuse to eat.

Sheikh Gaffar, an elderly man in Andhra Pradesh, confides about his recurring anguish when his granddaughter “takes a fancy to something and demands it. Shamim, her mother, gives her a slap by painfully raising her paralysed hand, and the child who is, after all, too young to understand the limitations of poverty, sobs herself to sleep.” Laibani, a separated mother, grieves when her children “see the neighbours” children eating biscuits, snacks or chocolate; they come to me and ask me for it. If I have some money or rice to barter at the shop, then I give them something to eat; if not, then I try to explain my predicament to them and promise them something in the near future, a promise I know I will not be able to keep.”

Mani, a young widow in Rajasthan, forcefully breastfeeds her younger daughter, and then leaves her the whole day in the care of her older daughter, barely a year older. They wait desperately for her to return with some food, and Mani herself has lost count of the times she had to sleep hungry. Kamala, another widow, sets aside some money from her earnings from brewing illicit liquor to buy new clothes for her daughters, but never for herself. “Of what use are new clothes to me? If I wear new clothes, people will say that this widow is on the prowl, looking for a man,” she jokes sardonically.

Hunger in the household often makes children themselves take painfully adult decisions about their lives at a very early age. A large number of children I meet on the streets beg when they are very young, and turn to waste-recycling, casual sex work and petty crime to survive, and sometimes also to feed their homeless families. Among the excruciating choices that hunger compels parents and children to make is to pull a child out of schooling into work. Most parents would ideally like to see their children study and have the opportunities for a better life. It is the State that must ensure that every child enters school and every adult is assured food and dignified work. But in households where hunger is a way of life, they see no other realistic option than to starve with them or send them out to work.

Still prevalent

Even more harrowing for a parent than to send out a small child to work, is to send him into debt bondage, which is still not uncommon in many parts of rural, and especially tribal India. Indradeep earned his own food as soon as he was four years old, as a bonded kutia in the sahukar's home in Bolangir. He rose early to graze cows and bullocks and carry food to the fields, all seven days a week, every month of the year without any break. In return, his employers gave him tea and mudhi in the morning and a meal at noon and 12 kilograms paddy for a year as remuneration. As he entered his 21st year, not much had changed except that he graduated into an adult bonded worker or halia.

Indradeep in time married, and only one son, Sadhu, survived. Whenever they would walk past the village school, he noticed how his little son gazed at it with interest and longing. He resolved that whatever it cost him, he would not send his son out to work as a bonded child labourer — as generations in his family had done before him, as long back as they could remember. Instead, he and his wife would willingly shoulder his burden and send him to school. Life held together for them until Sadhu reached 14 years, and had passed Class 7.

Disaster again struck, when Indradeep was diagnosed with TB and nearly died. He was admitted in hospital for prolonged treatment. They sold the little gold which his wife wore in her ears, which had helped bail them out often in the past, when they had mortgaged it for loans at the doorstep of the moneylender. They also mortgaged her gold nose-ring. In the end, Indradeep could survive only with a blinded eye and a crippled body, with loss of normal functioning in one side of the body and heavy burdens of debt. He could no longer depend on his own hard labour, which had been his only wealth.

His young son realised that it was his turn now to assume his responsibilities, which he did readily. On his own, Sadhu took the decision of quietly dropping out of school when his father was admitted in the hospital, and went to work like his father in the fields of landlords, and he grazed their cows. He then got in touch with other people in the village who regularly migrated, and left for the brick-kilns in Hyderabad when he was 14, for an advance of Rs. 900. He has continued to migrate in bonded conditions after that every year. Slowly they were able to repay the loans and sustain themselves. We were witness to his tearful departure one year, when he migrated for an advance of Rs. 8,000. Before leaving, he gave Rs. 500 to his parents and released her mother's nose jewel from mortgage for Rs. 1,000.

It still weighs heavily on Indradeep's heart that the boy could not study. But he is proud that his son is responsible and caring, “He does not waste even a single rupee on himself, and saves it all for his family.”

In this way, each generation valiantly but hopelessly battles hunger, both for the generation that has passed, and the one that is to come.