Health & Lifestyle

Exercise & Weight Loss

Determining if you are overweight

To determine quickly if you are overweight the following is a surefire way of pinpointing your health risks.

Waist to Hip Ratio determines distribution of body fat. More body fat in the upper body (chest and waist) suggests increased health risk for elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, strokes, longer time to conceive, heart disease or diabetes. More fat in the lower body (hips and thighs) suggests fat loss is difficult.

Constipation & High Fibre Diet

Constipation is very common not only in children but in adults too. In this article dietary and physiological aspects of constipation shall be discussed and not diseases leading to constipation. Today's lifestyle and eating habits have a bearing on this problem:

• Late rising in the morning and rushing to school/work
• Eating junk food and avoiding food which is rich in roughage
• Drinking less fluids

Over a period of time, small amounts of faeces gets accumulated in the rectum, which in turn hardens. This is known as `facecloths'. If corrective measures are not taken then as time passes, structural changes in the rectum occur, leading to acquired mega colon in children.

Vaccination Schedule

Vaccine		Age
BCG	:	immediately after birth
Polio	:	either oral or injectable: Oral – 5 doses in the first year Injectable with DTP
DPT	:	available as DwPT or DaPT. DwPT gives rise to fever and is painful whereas DaPT usually is painless and does not give rise to fever – 3 doses given at 6-8 weeks interval
Haemophilus Influenzae (HiB)	:	three doses given as combination with DPT
Hepatitis B	:	three doses along with DPT
Rotavirus oral vaccine given along with DPT (optional)
Pneumococcal vaccine	:	three doses given along with DPT (optional)
Flu vaccine	:	two doses at one month apart in the first year and then a booster every year (optional)
Measles	:	one dose at 8-1/2 months
Hepatitis A	:	two doses started after 12 months of age and given 6-8 months apart
Chickenpox	:	at 13 month age
MMR (mumps, measles, rubella)	:	at 15 month age
Polio/DPT/HiB booster at 18 month age
Typhoid vaccine at 2 year age and a booster every 3 years
Polio/DPT booster at 4-1/2 to 5 year age