Child Nutrition
Child Nutrition
As a parent, one of the most important goals for your child development should be child nutrition. Either you have to deal with a picky eater or stop your child from stuffing himself or herself with unhealthy snacks or feeding that child that seems to have been born with no appetite. Either way, child nutrition plays a crucial role in how they grow up, that’s why is essential for you to pay much attention to how your kid eats and how much of it he or she eats. The key to healthy development is balanced nutrition for both kids and adults. And here’s a list of reasons why is so important to have healthy habits and implement them into your child’s routine.
HEALTHY CHILD NUTRITION BENEFITS
Intellectual Development – this one is not new. Many children’s intellect is connected to the kind of food they eat. One study made in 2010, published in The Journal of Nutrition, concluded that a two-year-old child, who was undernourished had 16% more chances of failing or would enter the school later, compared to children who had balanced child nutrition.
Emotional Development – Child nutrition also plays an important role in children’s emotional development. This because, minerals such as calcium, help develop an emotional system. Undernourished kids have more chance of having autism, anxiety, depression or even schizophrenia after in life.
Behavioural Development – Child nutrition also impacts how they behave. In fact, for the first two years, if the child doesn’t get adequate nutrition, some consequences are becoming withdrawn, could be less active and generally not participating in helping his or her parents in simple tasks.
Your kid might be suffering from a lack of balanced nutrition not only because he or she is undernourished but also by over-feeding your child. But other reasons why a child might not be getting balanced child nutrition.
CHILD NUTRITION PROBLEMS
Financial Issues
Unfortunately, not every family can afford the best food products in a supermarket. In that case, families might settle for cheaper options that will negatively impact the kids and lead to health issues.
Picky eaters
Not every parent is lucky enough to have a child that loves all the food out there, including, of course, vegetables. Some children fuss about many foods that are put in front of them and many times, parents just give up and give the kids snacks that don’t provide the necessary nutrients.
Too much Junk Food
It’s not uncommon for kids to love chocolate, candies, and many more. Junk food, as we all know, is made to be addictive, to keep people eating and coming back for more. Manufacturers use synthetic ingredients and refining processes. When a kid loves more junk food than “real” food, it might be extremely challenging for parents to make their children eat better.
Lack of Knowledge
If the parents don’t know much about proper nutrition or don’t have energy or enough time to cook meals that take more than 15 minutes, then their children will suffer the consequences.
Food Allergy
Having an allergy to food doesn’t have to mean not have good healthy eating habits, but definitely makes it harder to happen.
BETTER CHILD NUTRITION
As you should know, nutrition starts before your child is born. The way that mothers eat during the pregnancy will impact the child’s development, including his or her brain. That said, the first step is having good healthy eating habits and avoid alcohol and smoking.
Once your child is born, the most important form of nutrition for the kid is breastfeeding, so you should continue to take care of yourself and the way you eat. Some of the benefits of breastfeeding your child are he or she becomes less likely to get severe bouts of diarrhoea, ear infections or even eczema.
Then, your kid will need solid food to consume and iron and iodine are two crucial nutrients to acquire healthy balanced nutrition. These two should be present in meals as much and as often as possible.
Iron, an essential mineral used to transport oxygen around the body in the form of hemoglobin, is an important component of brain tissues and children with low iron deficiency can get anemia and have slower nerves impulses. Especially in the first two years of their lives if you don’t provide enough iron in their meals, they can have behavioural changes and slower psychomotor development.
Good Sources of Iron
Fortified Cereals. In 100 grams, you can easily find about 40 mg of iron.
Beef. For instance, in a skirt steak, there’s at least 5.5 mg of iron.
Oysters. 100g of oysters has 9.2 mg of iron.
Dried fruit, such as apricots. In 100g of apricots, you’ll find 6.3 mg of iron.
Large white beans. In 100g of large white beans, you have 3.7 mg of iron.
Spinach. In 100g, spinach offers about 3.6 mg of iron.
Baking Chocolate. Use baking chocolate that contains 17 mg of iron (in 100g) to bake some delicious cakes for your child.
Iodine, a chemical element essential to produce thyroid hormones that regulate growth and metabolism, is also important for a child’s diet for a good and healthy overall development. Consuming enough iodine will prevent children to getting reduced cognitive development.
Good Sources of Iodine
- Strawberries. A cup of strawberries offers 2 mg of iodine.
- Dried seaweed. Considered to be the best dietary source of iodine. In just 1g there’s 20mg of iodine.
- Cod. In 100g, cod offers 10 mg of iodine.
- Milk. In one cup of regular (whole) milk, there’s 9.4 mg of iodine.
- Yoghurt. Similar to milk, just a cup of yoghurt has 7.5 mg of iodine.
- The baked potato. Just one medium-sized baked potato offers 6 mg of iodine.
- Iodized salt. A teaspoon of iodized salt has 3 mg of iodine.
- Eggs. Two large eggs have 4.9 mg of iodine.
- Iodine-enriched bread. Two slices of this bread have 4.5 mg of iodine.
- Shrimps. 100g of shrimps offers you about 4 mg of iodine.
Tracking the 30 essential daily nutrients for your child
Did you know that there are over 30 nutrients your child needs every day to grow? Some the body naturally makes and others you need to feed you child to make sure the child stays healthy. You can look at the recommended amounts on the NIH website. Another thing to mention is you may want to get the cronometer app to check your child is getting the 30 essential daily nutrients in the right quantities or safe time and errors by buying some nutritionally complete meal plans created by a registered dietitian if you can afford it. We are developing some and will keep you posted.
Now that you have all the information needed about child nutrition, it’s time to think about what meals you’ll cook for your child. Check some ideas for health kid’s breakfasts because we all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and healthy kid’s dinner to prepare delicious recipes to enjoy with your family!
