Are you one of those parents who is constantly worried about your child’s height and weight? In this article, let us address these critical pointers related to right growth & development in children.
More importantly, when should a child’s height and weight be a concern in India? Kids are involved with so many different physical & mental activities, we also try different methods to give them the right nutrition but sometimes filling those gaps to achieve right growth becomes a challenge for parents.
Achieving the ideal height and weight is important for the overall well-being of a child. In fact, one can say that these are two key visible indicators of growth in a child.
“My child is so lean, what’s wrong with him?”
“Though my child eats everything, why is he not gaining weight?”
Like every other mother, these were two of my concerns, as well, since my little one turned three and started his schooling. Even when you do everything right, it is always a great idea to keep a tab on whether your child is growing right. Like I began doing, you can too measure your child’s growth here. This Grow Right tracker by PediaSure is helpful in keeping track of children’s growth. This further helps him or her in physical, cognitive, behavioral & emotional development which also reflects in better academic performance & life. Once you enter the details of your child you get a downloadable report that you can show to your pediatrician for further inputs.
I even spoke to my doctor and read many research articles over the internet on the importance of tracking growth. Tracking my child’s growth has helped me identify the gaps in nutrition too. Some of these concerning points and probable solutions for the same are as below.
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Check Ideal Height & Weight for Children:
Of course, this is one worry no parent would like to sit upon, so start looking for an appropriate solution the right way. Monitoring a child’s growth is important. Understanding the proportion of weight v/s height which is an important part of monitoring growth.
4 Signs When Your Child’s Height & Weight Should Be a Concern:
1. Delayed Milestones:
Kids grow the most during early childhood. This is also the period when achieving infancy stage milestones are critical. If your child shows delay in reaching the milestones along with less growth in terms of height & weight, then it is advisable to see a pediatrician.
2. Less Growth in Height than the age-appropriate average:
According to Dr Manu Aggarwal, Pediatric Endocrinologist at Sitaram Bhartia Hospital, on an average a child in the age group of 4 to 9 years gains 2 to 3 inches in a year. The less gain in height can indicate a number of reasons like lack of balanced nutrition, genetic framework or in the worst-case scenario, a hormonal disorder.
3. If your child is Under-Weight or losing Weight:
If your child is under-weight then it is not necessary that it is a direct sign for worry. If they are active and bright like others then there is no need to worry. Most underweight kids catch up to average weight till their puberty age. However, if your child has suddenly lost weight, feels lethargic, has persistent episodes of coughing, fever, diarrhoea, etc. or is anorexic then it is a thing to be concerned about.
4. Being Overweight
Being overweight is also a concern and a situation when parents should seek medical advice. The gain in weight like this is mostly due to eating junk food on a regular basis and lack of physical activity.
How to Achieve the Right Average Height & Weight in Children?
The key to gaining ideal average height & weight in children lies in eating right. In growing children, a proper balanced diet is important as the bodily nutritional requirement is more. Apart from this, kids should be encouraged to indulge in physical activities like running or outdoors sports.
Check nutritional meal plans for kids here.
My son or daughter is a fussy eater, what to do?
Simple, make their food interesting. Children who are fussy eaters can be easily managed by making their meals come alive in a fun & interesting way. Shape the food in their favourite cartoons or while serving give the food a theme to make it look more attractive. Also, giving them a nutritional supplement like PediaSure with milk is a great idea to suffice any lack in dietary nutrition quotient.
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A healthy child is one with the right height and weight. Keeping these points in mind and making use of the tracker this is how I took the #FirstStepToGrowRight for my child.
If you found this article helpful do drop a comment & share!
The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not reflect the views of any brand. Any omissions or errors at the author’s end does not assume any liability or responsibility on any party mentioned in the blog.
References:
https://www.sitarambhartia.org/blog/pediatrics/short-height-in-children/
http://www.growingup.net/worried-about-your-childs-growth/seeing-your-doctor
https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/childs-weight.html
https://pediasure.in/child-nutrition/child-growth-and-development
Oh yes we have to check on their overall development. Some kids today are so obese and tend to be lethargic in the process. I wonder if the parents are aware of their health and development.
Tracking a child’s growth is quintessential to holistic growth of the child
Very well written article. I too track my son’s growth using Pediasure’s growth tracker
Tracking a child’s growth till 6 years and their milestones is very important. We too are using this growth tracker.
I am glad that Pediasure came up with this idea of a growth tracker , this was so far limited only to pediatricians. It is valuable tool to assess a child’s health and can dispel any confusion about healthy growth.
yes as a parent, we always had a worry about proper and age appropriate growth of our kids. pediasure’s growth tracker is really useful for parents to track their child’s growth. thanks a lot dear for sharing all insights.
Focusing on kids health like height and weight is really important and yes I never skip pediasure for my daughter.
Every child has different growth and weight levels.It mostly depends on genetics and habits.But these days with good diet and supplements kids can achieve target weight and height.
Keeping track of kids growth is extremely important and I am happy that now we are also using Pediasure tracker for our little one. Your pointers are absolutely correct that when we need to be worried about their growth.
Every child has different pattern for growth based on parents genes and checking them on reliable indicator is good way to keep track of it.
Height and weight are important indicators of growth in young children and that’s why it’s important to keep a track of these to see if the child is growing right. I have also started using the Grow Right tracker for my son.
Height and weight are crucial parameters to understand right growth in kids. This tracker is quite helpful for parents. I’ve used it too.
Kids health is really important and their growth is totally depends on proper nutrition and healthy diet. Pediasure is really nice and my daughter likes to have it
Right nutrition is a major concern for all moms and I too keep a track of my kids growth with pediasure tracker and pediasure is a part of my kids nutritional intake.
I was always worried about the height and weight aspect when my elder one was growing as she didnt gain that height initially. And thats when even I started giving Pediasure to my daughter as per doctors suggestion and could see the difference. Proper nutrition is indeed important for kids to grow well
Every mother is conditioned to think that her child should look or behave a certain way just so that the society would stop judging her child.
absolutely Right, each child is different and has different growth levels, by the time he is fit, reaching milestones and the levels are in normal range it should not be a concern but fussy eating could be. supplements can really help.
I’ve taken the #firststeptogrowright and started using the tracker for my daughter’s growth.
You’re so right to point out that right nutrition is the key to proper physical and mental growth of children.
Being a new mother I can relate with the concerns of mothers in regards to their child’s proper growth in early age. The tracker has helped me a lot and now I understand the growth parameters better.
Growth tracker gives you. the understanding of the nutritional requirement of your child and gives you the comfort of designing the diet of your child accordingly. Love your article.
Keeping a check on the growth of a child is really important. We too use Growth tracker for our kids.
The tracker is super helpful and I’m able to plan my kids meal accordingly. Love the pointers you’ve covered
Tracking child’s growth is really imp. We are using growth tracker