Why is immunity so important?

• Dr Manish Ladhania
• 08 Oct 2020
• Fitness

Immunity is quite simplistic, it is the innate quality of our body to protect itself from various pathogens. Another type of Immunity is called Acquired Immunity which we either develop over time or we take some medications to become immune against certain pathogens and helps recover from illness.

General practice is- if someone falls ill, we do the blame game like blaming it on the climate; when we can’t recover from an injury we blame it on the medicines; and when the situation does not seem to get better and the illness recurs frequently we end up blaming the physician, their methods of treatment or in some cases we even call it a misfortune.  But we are well aware of the fact that all such notions are quite impractical, rather we should get to the root cause of the recurrent illness, once your physician applies some tests on you, they often find that you have a low immunity level. 

Immunity is an ability of our body to defend us from pathogens and helps recover from illness, and when a person suffers from the lack of immunity that is when a series of problems arise.

Importance of Immunity in Children

By far we have come to terms with what immunity is and now the maximum amount of immunity that a person acquires is up to 21 years of age, after which our immunity starts decreasing and we need to take extra care of our immunity. A human undergoes the highest amount of growth during the first five years of his birth, and then this period of “extreme growth” extends until a child hits puberty, which means this is the stage when a child needs maximum nourishment and very strong immunity.

Children in their growing phase have to spend a lot of time on the field since they absorb Vitamin D from the Sun and as a result, their Bone Homeostasis is maintained, hence encourage them to involve in sports and spend more time on the field. Children, especially in the developed areas, spend most of their time indoors and as a result, their bones and muscles get weaker with time. If our body parts are not used for a considerable amount of time, it does not process the formation of new bones, eventually leading to problems like Osteoporosis and even Arthritis.

Maintaining Bone Health and Immunity in Children

Ask your children to participate in the following activities:

• Increase their outdoor time, and involve in sports like Cricket, Football, Basketball and other playground sports.
• Sports like Volleyball and Basketball help increase their Height.
• Yoga helps increase their concentration, which is important for their studies.
• Learn with fun activities like an educational treasure hunt, rallies for an important cause, educational tours, nature treks, etc. are not only important for their physical development but their development as a future citizen.

Continue reading in the second part of this blog, where discuss why do we suffer from Low Immunity and How is it linked with our Bone Health.