NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 3 An upset stomach — Think

Almost everyone has had an upset stomach at some time. It usually happens because something we ate or drank carried harmful microbes into our body.

The common causes are easy to list.

• Stale or spoiled food. Food that was kept too long, or kept uncovered, and had microbes growing in it.
• Cut fruit or food left open. Flies sit on it and leave microbes and dust behind.
• Unwashed hands. Eating without washing hands carries microbes from the hands straight into the mouth.
• Unsafe water. Water that has not been boiled or filtered.
• Eating in a hurry, or eating too much at one time. The book calls this a bad eating habit, and it also leads to indigestion.
• Fruits and vegetables that were not washed before being eaten raw.

Sample answer: “Yes. Last summer I drank a cold drink from an open glass at a fair and ate a cut fruit that had been lying in the sun. That night my stomach hurt and I felt like vomiting. I think the food had microbes on it, because it had been kept open for a long time in the heat.”

Eating spoiled food can make a person ill. The harmful microbes in it go into the body along with the food.

What a person may feel, usually within a few hours:

1. Pain or a heavy, uneasy feeling in the stomach.
2. Feeling like vomiting, and sometimes actually vomiting.
3. Loose motions (diarrhoea).
4. Weakness, headache, and sometimes a mild fever.
5. Because of vomiting and loose motions, the body loses a lot of water. This is the part that makes a person feel weakest.

What should be done:

• Tell an elder at once. Do not hide it.
• Drink plenty of safe water — boiled and cooled, or filtered — in small sips, again and again.
• Take ORS (oral rehydration solution) or home-made nimbu-shakkar-namak water if an elder gives it, to put back the water and salts the body has lost.
• Eat light, simple food — khichdi, curd, banana, rice — for a day or two.
• If the problem is severe, or does not get better, see a doctor and take only the medicines the doctor gives. The book says this too.

Answer from your own experience. A good answer says three things: what you felt, what was done at home, and what finally helped.

Sample answer: “When my stomach was upset, Amma first stopped giving me heavy or oily food. She gave me warm water to drink again and again, and a glass of ORS. In the evening I had a little khichdi and a bowl of curd. Aji gave me some ajwain with a pinch of salt, and later a glass of buttermilk. I rested for a day. By the next morning I felt much better. When my cousin had the same problem and it did not get better in two days, my uncle took him to the doctor and he was given medicine.”