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Every Monday, we find the nutrition chronicle of Dr. Binetou Cheikh Seck, dietician-nutritionist at the Nutridéal Dietetic Cabinet in Dakar, Senegal. Today, she advises listeners who lack an appetite.
What can cause a lack of appetite ?
The lack of appetite or the desire to eat can be secondary to an organic disease (infection, pathologies that affect taste and smell such as Covid-19, digestive diseases, etc.). It can also have a psychic cause such as stress and depression. When this lack of appetite lasts only a few days, there are no serious health consequences. But when it lasts several weeks and months, it leads to weight loss, weakening, deficiencies and a drop in immunity.
When you notice a persistent lack of appetite, what should you do?
Above all, you must consult a doctor to determine the cause of the loss of appetite – and to treat the organic or psychic reasons. While waiting for the effects of the treatment, there are dietary solutions to adopt.
So what are these diet solutions?
- Since you can no longer count on the feeling of hunger in case of loss of appetite, you have to plan to eat at specific times.
- We must determine well in advance what we are going to eat because, if we wait until the last moment to decide, we risk giving up the meal.
- You have to split meals: instead of trying to eat three big meals when you don’t feel like it, you eat 5 to 6 small portions a day.
- Each meal must be dense in nutrients, whatever the quantity: meat foods + starchy foods + vegetables + fruits to correct deficiencies and stimulate the appetite (avoid filling the stomach with foods low in nutrients).
- It is especially important to avoid stuffing with millet porridge because it suppresses the appetite even more and it is poor in micronutrients.
- Avoid drinking just before a meal to avoid suppressing your appetite even more (one hour before).
What regarding appetite stimulants?
First, they must be prescribed by a doctor, only if the cause of the loss of appetite is treated and dietary management is not enough.
