Anorexia results from multiple factors causing impaired digestive function and imbalance in regulation, leading to prolonged reduced appetite. Characterized by loss of appetite, even refusal to eat, fatigue, sparse hair, weight loss, and weakened immunity. Mild cases lead to malabsorption and delayed growth; severe cases cause serious nutritional deficiency, threatening life. This condition falls under the category of “Eshí” (bad eating) in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Prevention Before Illness
Preventing pediatric anorexia is more important than treating it after onset.
(1) Proper Dietary Regulation and Rational Feeding
Dietary adjustment is key to prevention. Provide easily digestible meals rich in starch, protein, fat, and vegetables. Diversify meal plans and avoid long-term consumption of greasy, fatty foods. Cultivate good habits: regular timing and portion control, avoiding picky or selective eating. Limit sweet snacks, beverages, and junk food while ensuring normal diet. Pay special attention to food hygiene.
(2) Timely Introduction of Complementary Foods
Introduce complementary foods gradually between 4–6 months after birth to provide necessary taste stimulation and develop healthy taste perception.
(3) Maintain Emotional Stability and Happiness
If overall conditions are good, do not force children to eat. Let them wait until the next meal. Only when hungry will they have good appetite. Instead of worrying excessively about low intake, encourage outdoor activities. Avoid scolding or beating children and prevent emotional stress. Also assess whether environmental factors at home or school affect eating habits.
(4) Dietary Therapy
1. Yam Rice Porridge: Cook rice, millet, and appropriate yam together. Can add red dates, radish, or hawthorn.
2. Meat Broth: Boil chicken, beef, or pork ribs with nutmeg, cloves, fennel, and cinnamon. Add salt before serving.
3. Barley Porridge: Grind barley into small grains, mix with a little chicken gizzard powder, and cook into porridge.
Post-Illness Prevention
If untreated, anorexia may lead to severe malnutrition and extreme weakness, affecting nutrition and development.
(1) Dietary Therapy
1. Digestive Cookies: Take 2 chicken gizzards, dry-roast on a tile, grind into powder, mix with 100g dry flour to make thin cookies. Adding sesame, fine salt, or sugar improves taste.
2. One eel, remove internal organs, add 6g chicken gizzard, boil with water, season with soy sauce, salt, ginger, etc., and consume daily for 7 days.
3. One chicken liver or 50g pork liver, 6g Atractylodes, boil with water, eat liver and drink soup daily for 7 days.
(2) Medicinal Treatment
Medications for pediatric anorexia vary based on different causes.
1. Eliminate Stagnation Method: Suitable for poor appetite due to irregular diet and indigestion.① Food accumulation: Oral Yini Jin or Qizhen Dan once, then continue with Xiao'er Jianpi Wan or Baohe Wan.② Cold food accumulation: Take Baichui Wanying San; after purging, take Xiangsha Yangwei Wan.
2. Regulate Spleen and Stomach: For chronic poor appetite and spleen-stomach deficiency, use Xiao'er Jianpi Wan, Fe’er Wan, or Shēnlíng Bái Zhú Sàn.
3. Zinc Supplementation: For zinc-deficient children confirmed via blood or hair zinc levels, oral zinc sulfate or zinc acetate syrup.
(3) Single and Effective Formulas
1. Pediatric Malnutrition Formula: 5 cockroaches, deep-fried, consumed daily until recovery.
2. Dry toad venom, remove legs, coat with fragrant oil, dry and grind into powder. Take 1.5–3g each time, three times daily, washed down with red date decoction.
3. 30g chicken gizzard, dry-roasted, mixed with 100g Shenqu, Malt, Hawthorn, ground into fine powder. Take 1.5–3g each time, three times daily.
4. 100g Five-grain worm, 50g chicken gizzard, both roasted yellow, ground into powder. Take 3g each time, three times daily, dissolved in 10g malt decoction.
(4) Acupuncture and Massage
1. Select acupoints: Zhongwan, Qihai, Zusanli, Dachangshu. Treat for 5–7 days. If ineffective, add Pishu and Weishu.
2. Acupuncture at Si Feng: Use a three-edged needle to puncture both hands’ Si Feng points, insert 0.5–1 fen, squeeze out yellow fluid after withdrawal, wipe dry with disinfectant cotton ball. Perform every other day to eliminate accumulation and strengthen spleen.
3. Abdominal massage for 5 minutes, spine pinching 5 times, once daily. A course lasts 3–5 days.<Anorexia>