This is a common question children ask their parents. I am pretty sure you too want to know about it? No, no, it’s not because your mother wants you to. There is more to it than just your mother wanting you to eat. By the way, do you know what makes cars run? I can almost hear you say, ‘fuel. What a stupid question to ask? Well, if you think that is stupid, please tell me how you move around and do so many things? Food, that’s what is fueling your activities. I am sure you got that right, but do you know there are two big reasons why you eat? Your body uses food you eat as building blocks and fuel. These building blocks are used in two different ways. First, when you are growing, you are adding new building blocks to your body. Second, your body is also repairing itself: replacing the old blocks with new ones.
I see a few puzzled faces. So you have no clue as to what “building blocks” are?[break]
The building blocks of your body are protein. If you don’t eat enough protein, your growth becomes restricted. That’s why your mom yells at you to eat more of them. The other thing your body needs is fuel so your muscles can move and your brain can think. While food gives energy, it also helps you to become tall and strong, have fair skin, nice hair and nails and strong bones.
I know you all want to look good. For that you have to eat a healthy, balanced diet. This will also make sure that all the organs of your body, including heart, functioning of the brain and other vital organs perform the way they are supposed to while helping with the movement and repairing your body.
Let us see how this takes place.
Every time you eat something, a complex process of digestion, absorption, assimilation and finally excretion takes place. Food, while going through the transformations, provides us with calories, metabolized in the body, to give us energy. To get this process going properly, you need to eat healthy and balanced diet, including carbohydrates, proteins, vegetables and dairy products everyday.
I can see you making faces, but vegetables supply you with vitamins and phytonutrients. These nutrients are often closely linked to prevention of certain diseases.
You also need to eat fiber-rich vegetables to allow food to move through your digestive tract in a healthy manner.
Now you want to know, what will happen if you don’t eat?
Have you ever heard your stomach growl? Yes, you got it: that’s your body asking for food. If you don’t eat, food deprivation takes place in your body, resulting in an imbalance of nutrients. This can cause serious health problems like malnutrition, and too few calories lead to starvation. Did you know, according to WFP, poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – that totals to 3.1 million children each year? I can hear you say, ‘Oh my God, I did not know that!!’ I know, no one told you. Now that you know, consider yourself lucky and eat up the food given to you. By now you know that you need to eat to live, and you must eat well to be healthy. With all the information, you can even tell others to eat well.
Better yet, the next time your mom is in the kitchen, ask if she will teach you how to cook. You can help wash and cut vegetables, stir the curry, or make fresh achaar, or even help set the table. Not only will you get to see exactly what efforts go into preparing your meals but isn’t it more fun to eat food you’ve prepared yourself? Who knows, you might even earn praise for the foods you cooked for dinner – all by yourself. At the same time it will make your mom one happy person. Why not? Give it a try.
Pokharel is an educationist, consultant and author of several children’s books.
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