I began writing blogs as a pastime during the lockdown days of Covid 19 pandemic, to be precise when the second wave hit India. The literary output was more self indulging at first but later the responses of those who read my scribes boosted my sense of self- worth.

Recently when I found something that concerns the parents and well-wishers of our kids, I thought I would digress from my usual style. So here we go…

I happened to attend a talk by a Pediatrician on the growth issues among children. I could perfectly understand most of the things she addressed. Being the mother of two, I had similar concerns. What hit me like a dynamite was when she mentioned something called ‘bone age.’ I remember something similar to it being mentioned between Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon in the American drama series ‘The Mentalist.’ But then who takes the stuff they show on T.V seriously. This time it was mentioned in quite a different context, definitely not related to solving murder mysteries, but in determining how fast or slow a child's skeleton is maturing. Thus if a child grows faster or slower than his/her counterparts it is not just because of the amount of food he /she eats or because of his/her parents’ tall or short stature. Now isn’t it a revelation? Well, it was for me.

While growing up I have witnessed and experienced mothers fussing on their kids’ lack of appetite and poor growth rate. I am not sure whether they meant the height, weight or ‘width’ by the term ‘growth’. Anyway the fad of those times were the numerous tonics to increase appetite prescribed by the ‘allopathy doctor’ and the many arishtams, choornams and of course the one which reigns the top of the list, the one and only ‘Chyawanprasham’ with its pal ‘Indukantam ghritam’ prescribed by the Ayurveda ‘vydhyan.’ Apart from these may be they did consult the local homeopath too. I am not certain. But then desperate times demand desperate measures.

Chawanaprasham

Indukandam

Quite interestingly the virtual talk that I heard did not mention anything on the cause and effect of why some kids mature late and some early. I was intrigued. My Pediatrician husband came to my aid. He was kind enough to share some credible articles on the subject with me.

Apart from the genetic factor, several environmental and cultural factors like stress, amount of physical activity, exposure to sunlight and most importantly quality of food determines the age in which children mature, especially girls. There, I heard mentioned the usual culprits, - fast food, chicken, meat, fried items, obesity. But no, as I progress through the lines I got an entirely different perspective of the role of plastics that we unknowingly ingest everyday!!!

Quality of Food/ Plastic Ingestion

The plastic containers to store our provisions, plastic bottles to carry and store water, microwaving things in plastic dishes, the plastic packet in which our milk comes, racks of bakery savories, an endless list flashed before my eyes. All the plastic wastes that we so poorly dispose of do not really leave us. They bounce back on to us as they get in to the water system. We need not be an Albert Einstein to understand that even the fish and prawn delicacies we relish so much have traces of plastic in them but we need to be one to know that micro plastics are there in EVERYTHING we eat and drink.

Researchers sampled 259 water bottles purchased from 19 different locations in 9 countries around the world using Nile red dye to fluoresce particles in the water – the dye tends to hold to the surface of plastic but not most natural materials. They found out nearly all of the water bottles tested (93%) had microplastics inside.

Scientists ended up estimating that on average, a liter of bottled water has around 10.4 tiny plastic particles inside that people swallow when they’re drinking. Moreover, the researchers found, on average, around 315 tiny microparticles per 1-liter bottles.

Sunlight and Physical Exercise

When I read about the relation between sun exposure and growth I was reminded of plants, gardening and the experiment we did in class six to learn that plants need sunlight to grow. But I was in the dark when it came to its importance in my children’s growth. It was stupid of me to lavish on toys, PLASTIC TOYS, when I should have allowed my kids to run with the wind, bask in the sun, jump in the muddy puddles that form after a rain and be one with nature. They would have got all the vitamin D for free and the physical exercise that is paramount to growth. Guess what! It boosts their immunity too. They are natural immunity boosters unlike the ones available in the market. Isn't it cherry on top!

The most disturbing thing was that the issues with bone maturation begins from the fetal stage itself. I was totally at loss on that piece of information. I felt angry and hurt. Nobody told me these things and certainly not this clearly. When medicines were prescribed to the kids for better appetite no doctor asked us mothers what the child’s daily routine was. They didn’t point out the importance of engaging them in outdoor games or simply being outdoorsy. The words like 'environmental and cultural factors or lifestyle,' were too vague and subtle for a non medical person to comprehend.

What can we do?

The important question is what can we do about it – as parents, as teachers, as a society? I am not a doctor and this is not a medical journal. So let us ask our pediatricians and family doctors. Let's search online. Let's educate ourselves.

Whether to fuss over our child’s growth making it an ‘interesting’ living room discussion and over the meals talk or to consult a dozen doctors and stress the kid out is entirely up to us. We can make them jump rope about 3000 times in a day like the Chinese mother from Zheniiang province in the bizarre pursuit to make 'elongated men' out of them. Instead allow them to enjoy playing with the neighborhood kids and have fun. We can deny them the PT and games period at school for misbehavior and make them sedentary. Instead let us encourage them to play their heart out in our playgrounds and parks.

Whatever be our course of action let us make an informed decision. After all these kids are the apples of our eyes. When we rob them of childhood experiences we rob them their childhood, their right of being a child. As we celebrate Chacha Nehru's birthday as 'Children's Day' let us give them back their childhood.