#CatchUpOnGrowth Indiblogger Meet

When people look at me, they can't even remotely decipher that my father is over six feet tall. Yes I am an example of a short stature son of a tall father. And I blame that to my faulty nutrition. I was such a picky eater that I did not get the required nutrition. Now that I am Dad and my daughter is grossly underweight and a picky eater too, I am scared as hell about her growth and nutrition. Undernutrition does not necessarily happen in the downtrodden alone. The affluent class is equally prone to malnutrition. As my two year old daughter is highly underweight, I am worried as hell. I don't want history repeating.

Catching up with my Blogger friends...

Its been really long that we had an Indiblogger meet in Delhi. Everyday I would open up the site with great hopes only to see meets elsewhere. Sometimes in Bangalore, Mumbai or Kolkata even but not Delhi. One fine day I saw something vey promising in my inbox. It was a Horlicks Indiblogger Meet in Delhi and that too on a Sunday! It said '#CatchUpOnGrowth ' Meet and the title really intrigued me!

The venue was the lavish Lalit hotel and as soon as I reached there with my wife, I saw my favourite faces. I could not eat as much as I would have liked to as I was too busy interacting with my fellow blogger friends. I was meeting them after quite a long time and we all were elated to see each other.

The session started with our favourite anchor Anoop. He started with the number game. You randomly choose any number from one to ten and that digit can either give you a bouquet or a brickbat. I remember in one meet a first year college girl (I mean very young) won 3000 cold hard cash! While some of the hilarious prizes consisted of an egg, cupcake, etc. This time few won cash while Anoop created a lot of hoopla around an Apple (and people secretly thought it to be linked with Mac). There were red roses too!

The eminent panelists: from left: Moderator Natasha Badhwar, dietician Dr Jyoti Batra, Paeditrician Dr Rajiv Chhabra and psychologist Ms Satinder Kaur Walia.

Then it was time for the product launch. The launch was preceded by a very healthy and educational discussion by a bunch of panelists.  Natasha Badhwar was the moderator who is a mother, entrepreneur and blogger, then there was a senior pediatrician from Artemis Hospital Dr. Rajeev Chhabra,senior child psychologist Ms Satinder Kaur Walia and senior nutritionist Dr Jyoti Batra. The topics of discussion ranged from picky and fussy eaters to how to deal with malnutrition. Malnutrition consists of both under and overnutrition. That means obesity is also a sign of malnutrition. I personally did not like Dr Chabra's take on milk overdose. He said that giving too much milk chelates the iron in children rendering them anaemic. I being an orthopedician don't quite agree with him fully. When I said that we Indians majorly suffer from Osteomalacia, rickets and Osteoarthritis because of Calcium deficiency, we blamed that solely on Vitamin D deficiency. I don't totally agree with him. Vitamin D deficiency is rampant but both these minerals are responsible for the above said conditions.  

The stage taken over By Dr Aditya Kaushik..

Then the satge was taken over by the GSK professionals: Mr Amaan Khan, the marketing head of GSK Consumer Healthcare and Dr Aditya Kaushik, the head of medical affairs for GSK . We were shown a short film where mothers were cribbing how their kids had lost growth because of insufficient nutrition. I could hear my mother's cries too. And somewhere there I could sense my wife's concern for our underweight daughter. If I have not been a fussy eater, I would have been as tall as my Dad. Anyways, the main question of the afternoon was 'Can lost growth be gained back? To our surprise, Mr Khan said YES, lost growth CAN be regained.

Horlicks Growth Plus

Then the product was unraveled with fanfare. Horlicks Growth + has been formulated after 5 to 6 years of research and is filled with all the essential elements in the right proportion. It is for children for 3 to 9 years of age and would replenish their lost growth. Hence when this product is given to the growth  deficient kid in right amount amounts for 6 months, we would be able to see visible growth (both in height and weight). Whoa that's a breakthrough! The product is available in two flavours Vanilla and chocolate. We were given Vanilla to try and it was yummilicious! The product comes in 2 packs; the 400 gm one costs 585 INR while the smaller one is cheaper.

Trying the delicious Vanilla flavoured Horlicks Growth +

Bloggers being shuffled like cards..

Moving ahead to the funniest part of the afternoon. Anoop shuffled all the bloggers like cards are shuffled. So the people with whom I was sitting were separated from me. Instead I made some new blogger friends. Then the best part began. We were asked to form a team of ten asap and choose a leader. We were supposed to create a video (30 seconds max) about Horlicks using the props which our leaders were given. Ours was Team no 7. I, the usual photographer made the video with Jinjin's phone. Initially there was a lot of disagreement (as happens with a bunch of people) but then we finally settled. Our first video was of 2 minutes in which we included the entire team. But then we decided to cut it short to fit into the 30 second frame. It was mainly a mother son video and the magic of Horlicks Growth+. We uploaded the video on Twitter.

Me making the video...

Our team after the video...

 

The final leg of the meet was of course the Hud Hud ; we had not done it in the beginning. Group photo sessions are usually pretty crazy as there is a lot of struggle involved; but fun nonetheless! I was also interviewed by the GSK people as a parent. We then headed home with a jar of Horlicks Growth+. I have high expectations from this product for my daughter!

Can you spot me in this amazing crowd?

With blogger friend Pankaj...

Along with Horlicks we also got a scrapbook where I can document my kiddo's growth!