Why doesn't the patient feel hungry?!

Digestion is generally a welcomed process, but it requires a lot of energy.Therefore, the body prefers to direct this energy towards fighting the illness and its causes!

What is the secret behind our strange - and sometimes exaggerated - urge to force food on a sick child, even against their will?!

The sick child, much like an adult, loses their appetite when they have a cold. Their body chooses to redirect most of its energy in favor of the immune system, which needs to work more intensively than usual right now.

Digestion is generally a welcomed process, but it requires a lot of energy. We all know the feeling of fatigue and heaviness after finishing a large meal, that desire to close our eyes and rest for a moment, and our inner wish for guests to leave or for children to go out and play so that we can take a nap.

Even with small meals, they still require energy for the process of digestion. Although we may not feel it directly, our body needs to allocate a lot of its resources to the process of breaking down food into nutrients, from which it can derive energy.

At the onset of a cold, our bodies prefer not to allocate resources to the digestion process because it's preferable not to exert too much physical effort. Therefore, we suddenly feel tired and have the desire to rest.

Our intelligent body prefers to temporarily allocate its important resources so it can focus on and prioritize the system fighting off the illness. Our body has sufficient energy reserves that can sustain it for a period without the need for food. However, when it comes to water, it's an entirely different situation; we always need water under all circumstances. Additionally, drinking water doesn't require much energy expenditure.

This is how our body signals to us that it doesn't feel hungry but rather nauseous. Or, more simply, that it's not capable of accepting or tasting food.

We, who were raised with the notion that one must eat to provide the body with the necessary strength to fight illness, often try various methods to force our sick children to eat. Parents feel happy when their child requests food after taking fever-reducing medication and starts to show signs of improvement.

True, they may feel better, but their body hasn't fully overcome the illness yet. Essentially, it has taken a break, and there is something else at work (the medication).

If we believed that his body would no longer need the immune system, we would gladly embrace this belief. But we know very well that the immune system will return to work shortly. Therefore, what pleases us most is knowing that the immune system has become stronger than it was the last time he was sick and that it will be more prepared and capable of facing the illness the next time he gets sick.

Everything mentioned above is only true in the early stages of the illness. If the illness persists, our approach to the situation must change completely.

Recommendations: If the child doesn't want to eat, don't force them. However, ensure they drink plenty of fluids. Everything else is not important. If the child wants to rest, allow them to do so.

Not every time a child has a cold do we notice symptoms on them; most cases resolve before we recognize the symptoms we're familiar with.