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Show Underweight Child Presents Problem The youngster may be returning to school after holidays spent outdoors out-doors and despite his improved appetite ap-petite and eaUng more food, there has been little or no gain in weight. This is naturally discouraging to parents of underweight children. If the youngster has spent his vacation vaca-tion in a boys' camp with the swimming, swim-ming, hiking, rowing and paddling, there may be an actual decrease in weight but an increased firmness of muscles. However, younger children just reaching school age should be gradually grad-ually increasing in weight; if not, parents should try to find the reason. rea-son. It will be found in some cases that there are infected teeth and tonsils and these conditions should be corrected before the child begins school after Uie holidays. In an attempt at-tempt to increase the weight of Uie youngster some parents try to force him to eat more food which may be helpful in some cases but is more often harmful. In speaking of the underweight child Dr. Henry Dietrich, in SouUi-western SouUi-western Medicine, says that the average av-erage underweight child should not be put to bed and given forced feedings feed-ings nor should he be treated with gland extracts. "I refer now to the child who is mentally and physically more acUve than the average, usually with no infection or physical defects, who is somewhat underweight, fails to gain at the proper rate, and eats poorly. The parents, friends, and sometimes the physician decide Uiat the child needs a tonic. In such a case we must learn of the activHies the child must carry on each day. How much time does it spend at school, how much at play, what activities docs it have outside of school, what is its total amount of sleep?" Sleep Important. Fatigue tiredness occupies an important place in the complaints of childhood. From 10 to 11 hours of sleep are necessary for Uie school child, and for children up to six years a noon-day nap of hours is necessary. The Uiought then with the youngster young-ster who thinks and acts faster than the average is Uiat his underweight may be due to overactivity tiredness. tired-ness. The treatment is not more food but more rest and sleep, as suggested by Dr. Dietrich. U BeU Syndicate. WNU Service. |