Children Nutrition
We live because we eat. The amount of reliable information about food and health has increased enormously since the 1970s, and recommendations about diet continually change to reflect this rise. Unfortunately, half-truths and misinformation have grown just as explosively, and families often are confused by a bewildering mixture of fact and fiction, solid advice and sensational claims.
The parents have to understand the principles of child nutrition; how the body uses food; the links between nutrition and health; and successful ways to encourage children to eat food that is good for them. Good nutrition during childhood is vital to a growing, developing body and a healthy adulthood.
Providing nourishing food is one of the most significant, lasting ways parents show their love for their children. With a sound diet, parents provide raw materials for growth and development- for active and alert children who grow physically, emotionally, and intellectually. By presenting that food in a warm, happy setting, parents nurture sensible eating habits that often last a lifetime. Feeding is caring, and feeding well is loving well.
The child will eat when they hunger. The Infant also will cry when they hunger. Not surprisingly, hunger was the first and most frequent reason given for eating. Hunger is triggered by the body’s need for six kinds of nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. All these nutrients are needed for survival and growth. A lack of any one of them for a long period of time inevitably leads to health problems.
Infants and young children are especially sensitive to the hunger signals their bodies send out. Unless forced or strongly encouraged, they rarely eat more or less than they need. Even more remarkably, over the course of a few days, if presented with foods containing all the essential nutrients, children will adequately balance their diets.
In addition to filling the body’s needs, food has rich cultural significance. This is immediately evident in the use of food related words, often to signify emotions-sweetie, honey, apple pie, fruitcake, rotten egg, peach, spicy, salt of the earth, tart, and oily.
The foods that people eat, when and how these foods are eaten, and even the size of a serving varies from country to country, as well as from neighborhood to neighborhood and house to house. Eating patterns, however, can be linked to several general trends-personal food preferences and family eating patterns; social roles and pressures; the larger culture; and environmental, technological, and economic factors affecting availability. Taken together, this complicated web determines whether a person eats rice and beans, steak and potatoes, or shredded cabbage and shrimp; six meals or three meals a day; uses fingers, chopsticks, gourd, or fork; and whether the meal satisfies hunger.
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