Child cigarette addict before , today it is a food

A child who started smoking two years , is now addicted to food .

 Aldi Rizal , a boy of five years who lives in Sumatra , Indonesia, today weighs 24 kilos and is addicted to food . When he was two, his addiction was nicotine and smoked 40 cigarettes a day .

When local authorities discovered the "early smoking " in 2010 , the news leaked to media worldwide . A scene of asian boy driving a tricycle with a cigarette in his mouth invaded social networks.

Such was the outrage it generated, the Indonesian government launched a rehabilitation program in order to heal Aldi , who was subjected to a rigorous treatment in Jakarta , which consisted of two weekly therapies away from addiction.

"The child could quit, but started eating compulsively and uncontrollably ," say his parents , Diane and Mohamed Rizal , adding that in addition to feeding today with "junk" food , it takes up to three bottles a day condensed milk , reported elDailyMail .


Photo: AP

To monitor treatment , two years into the health authorities visited the family and found the surprise that the ' exadicto ' cigarette , now weighed 24 kilos .

The mother argues that her son, who is called in Sumatra " the smoking child " is compulsive and anxious and that it was supplying cigarettes to children , in order to calm him. What I never imagined was that Aldi would early addicted to nicotine.
The attending physician , William Nawawi explains that " nicotine stimulates the endocrine system in the body. This causes insulin resistance and that this is unable to process glucose . " So he made ​​a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and forbade the "junk" food .

But Aldi is not the only child with this problem in Indonesia, where smoking is overwhelming , because this country is the second largest producer of snuff in the world. 30% of the 80 million children living in that country adopted smoking after ten years , and 63 % of adult men smoke , so it ranks first male smokers in the world , according to official reports.

Efren Garzón , clinical psychologist, addiction expert and Director of the Center for Work Life Rehabilitation (Bogotá), told Semana.com addictions in children are difficult to treat, because " I still lack a cognitive knowledge allows them to understand a therapeutic process. "

The specialist says that one of the serious drug solutions , because their young age , they can not even get a rational cognitive therapy. " This is the typical case where the delete you addicted to nicotine , a picture of abstention is generated , which causes anxiety and child replaces nicotine intake by food , as any addiction is a deficit containment impulses. "

One wonders if in the case of Aldi , the cure was worse than the disease.