Barbie doll to mother can lead to complications

Their target is to achieve size zero. Come teenage years, most girls develop an aversion towards eating. A Barbie-doll figure is all that they dream of achieving. But how? Dieting, or starving rather. The result? Many teenagers turn out to be underweight and even anaemic.

"The trend of getting thinner, mimicking Bollywood heroines or supermodels is unfortunately increasing among teenage girls. And the worst part is that, in an attempt to keep a count on the calories, they are substituting healthy food with junk food," said Sheela Krishnaswamy, National vice-president, Indian Dietetic Association. "For example, if a teenage girl is supposed to take around 300 calories
a day, she prefers having a burger and an ice-cream for the
entire day, thus lacking nutrition," she added.

Girls require proper nutrition since they need to go through a lot of physiological stress. “First it is menarche, then the whole exertion of pregnancy and child birth, followed by the entire lactation period.

Only proper nutrition can help women cope well with this kind of stress. Also, a good store of nutrition in the body, later in life, helps them deal with the menopausal change in the body,” said Jyothi Prasad, chief dietician, Manipal Hospital.

However, girls seldom realise the importance of this. More commonly, teenagers want to lose unrealistic amounts of weight, thus ignoring nutrition in general. The problem arises when these teenagers grow up to be mothers.

“My daughter hardly eats anything. An apple for breakfast, two slices of brown bread with a small bowl of soup for lunch and one home-made roti with a bowl of vegetable soup or a piece of chicken is all she consumes in an entire day. It seems anything more will make her fat,” said Sarala D, mother of 17-year-old Neetu.

Recently, when she started feeling giddy and experiencing fatigue for few days, and was taken to their family physician, it was revealed that Neetu is a victim of anorexia, an eating disorder. However, she refuses to improve her eating pattern, complains Sarala.

Crash dieting can lead to hormonal imbalance in the body, thus making it difficult for women to conceive. An underweight mother runs the risk of miscarriage. Also, the baby remains underweight at birth. On the other hand, being overweight is also a big concern. "Since a woman tends to gain weight during pregnancy, if she is already overweight, it can lead to complications like hypertension and diabetes in the would-be mother," said Jyothi Prasad.

Thus, nutritionists advice that at least months before planning for a baby, women should get serious about their nutritional intake.