Infant girl with insatiable hunger

Ferozpur, Jan 4 (UNI) While mothers of most infants love to see their child hog a tummyful, for 30-month-old Anjali's mother its a pain to watch her eat.

For Anjali devours a dozen bananas, one litre milk, half kg of cooked rice, five chapatis, sweetmeats and snacks in a day -- a diet that has made her weigh an unhealthy 40 kg and threatens to eat her parents out of home and hearth.

Unable to either provide their daughter her daily jumbo diet, and worried about her health, Anjali's poor parents, father Tarsem Lal and mother Praveen Rani, today turned to media in order to seek attention and help for their little daughter's plight.

While a bloated Anjali happily consumed a dozen babanas, half kg sweetmeats, half litre milk and a number of snacks in front of news persons, her distraught parents pointed out that she could barely wobble due to her weight and could soon develop a number of obesity- related ailments.

''While on one hand we are too poor to afford her insatiable diet, and are running into debt, we are also not able to get her proper medical treatment which the local doctors say is available only in big hospitals,'' her mother Praveen Rani said in an emotion-choked voice.

She was supported by paediatrician of the Civil hospital here, Dr Baldev Singh, who told reporters that this was a rare case of imbalance in certain hormones and could be treated at advance hospitals like the PGI in Chandigarh.

The parents of Anjali have appealed to the Punjab government and the district administration to extend them help for the medical treatment and bringing up of their daughter.

UNI