Child Nutrition
Nutritional experiences in early life can have long-lasting consequences. To encourage the adoption of healthy eating habits, this topic explains the usual development of eating habits and how to distinguish common .
Parents play a key role in promoting healthy eating. Right from the start, choosing to breastfeed gives babies a nutritional boost and may help them learn to better regulate their food intake.
*Parents can also.
Provide healthy nutritious food daily, such as fruits and vegetables. Be sensitive to when children are hungry and full, and serve age-appropriate portions to avoid overeating.
Teach children to be aware of when they are full and to eat slowly.
Make mealtime an enjoyable time free of stress and distractions.
Limit the amount of screen time to 1-2 hours daily, and only for children over 2 years. Encourage children to be physically active.
Finally, one of the best ways for parents to encourage healthy eating is by being a good role model.
*How important is it?
young children to discover an At this age, children become increasingly influenced by external signals such as family, friends, and society, to dictate their hunger.
children are exposed to new foods or events during mealtime, or when they are trying to master a new feeding skill. However, 1% to 2%of children experience chronic feeding problems, including overeating, malnutrition, problematic behaviours during meals and atypical eating choices. These problems are especially common in children born prematurely, and those with developmental disabilities. Eating problems can be highly stressful for parents and can result in a strained parent-child relationship.
unhealthy habits, such as favoring food that is high in fat and sugar tend to persist over time.
Several factors play a role in the development of feeding problems. Feeding difficulties are likely to emerge when feeding has been paired with a painful or unpleasant experience that the child comes to associate with mealtime.
Temperament traits such as the inability to self-regulate and to communicate one’s hunger level can make feeding routine challenging. Similarly, a genetic predisposition for big or small appetite can increase the likelihood of feeding problems.
When feeding problems emerge, mealtimes can become loaded with anxiety and frustration for both children and parents. Misreading the child’s signals can further aggravate problematic behaviours. Strategies to encourage eating such as punishment, distractions, and toys can work temporarily, but they tend to worsen problems over time. The most effective approach is responsive feeding, where reciprocal interactions during meals are based on the child’s signals.
*What can be done?
Given that feeding problems most often originate from multiple causes, multidisciplinary approaches that consider cultural and temperamental differences are strongly recommended. Although not all children respond equally well to interventions, several strategies have been successful at promoting a healthy diet, starting with those involving parents. Parents can help reduce overeating by cooking smaller quantity of food per meal, thereby limiting access to oversized portion, and by encouraging their children to slow down their eating speed by putting their utensils down after each bite. Parents can also encourage healthy habits by discussing feelings of satiety, modelling healthy eating habits, and limiting the amount of television watching to 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming, and only in children over 2 years. Parents who discuss the content of advertisement messages and who regulate the type of food their young child eats are likely to be successful at discouraging unhealthy habits.
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