Is your kid eating healthy and safe of obesity?
Eating patterns that begin in childhood affect health and well-being throughout the life. The eating habits have changed significantly in recent years, especially in parts of the country where processed foods dominate the diet. It is important to examine the contemporary child nutrition and the impact of the individual decisions made by each family. Each family needs to know the health risks associated with obesity in childhood.
Kids are cute as they are. But, are they healthy and are they growing towards a healthy future? Parents need to keep asking these questions to themselves for securing their future. A happy present should not lead to a miserable future. And here are some steps that could be taken to secure your kid’s health.
Rule 1 – Nothing is better than Home made food.
We all know kids are like wet clay and you can shape them the way you want. Parents and the people around the kid play a major role in its food habits. So it’s the responsibility of elders to teach good eating habits so as the kid grows in a healthy way. For that, elders should be aware of a balanced meal and healthy diet. Learn tricks for controlling the quantity of food while maintaining satisfaction of the kid. After all we need is the happiness of the child. When we compare eating home cooked food and the outside food, right from the ingredients used to the portion size is under our control when we eat home cooked food. For instance, if we order a dish at a restaurant, the quantity, ingredients used and the preservatives added to maintain the taste and the quality is not in our control and we are left with only one option of eating it full. But we cannot avoid eating outside completely, but we can always have a planned eating out on a periodic basis so that the discipline is cultivated.
Rule 2 – Let the child learn how to eat
During first 6 months, breast milk is the best food for the baby. After which when we start giving the other food. Now it times to start managing the food intake of food. And now the curiosity of the child will also be at its peak. So it’s very important to show the good eating habits by the parents and the others in the family as the child learns and follows the maximum habits by observations. So store wholesome foods and snacks at home. Eat more fresh fruits veggies and homemade foods. Try to avoid storing and eating the packaged and preserved snacks.
Now there might be a common question coming up saying aren’t we allowed to eat any fancy foods?! Of course, you can. But be very sure and particular about what you eat and how often you eat them. Bifurcating between eating and overeating is very important. Limit the fancy foods and mandatorily eat the wholesome food. Have a disciplinary eating habits.
Making the kid develop the habits to eat on its own is another major part. All the members of the family try and eat together at least one meal a day. Every time the family sits for the food, let the child also have its place and eat. Have a small plate kept in front of the child and serve smaller pieces of foods like veggies, roti or a little rice. Of course there might be an extra work for you to clean, but by making this a practice, the child will develop a habit to pick the food and eat on its own and also the child will develop the tastes for wholesome foods. (you can then of course make sure whatever the child’s prescribed regular meal is been fed for the required nourishment )
Rule 3 – Do not overfeed the child
The body frame of an individual is decided by the fat cells in the body and the fat cells multiply and develop in the first five years of age. So the more you make your child grow fat and chubby, the child will have a problem in the future. Because, after five years, there are no new fat cells produced in the body, rather they only grow in size. So the more fat cells the child has, the larger the body frame he/she will have as an adult.
If you are worried about your child being small and tiny and not getting fatter, you should look for how healthy is you child in terms of fair eating habits, physical activity, growth in height according to the age, intellectual development and the immune system. If all these are normal cording to the age, and it’s just the baby has a lean body, you need not worry at all. Hence do not over feed the kid if you feel he/she is lean. Being healthy is more important than being a chubby baby at a young age.
Rule 4 – Get closer to nature
The human body is designed very close to nature. But as the child grows up, depending on habits and lifestyle the body starts showing the changes and slowly gets into problems. So, it is necessary to give importance to natural substances and keep the processed foods away. At least for the sake of teaching the child eat right, everyone in the family need to adopt healthy habits because you cannot ask or expect your child to eat right when you aren’t doing it yourself! Who knows your kid might become a reason for a healthy family too if you adopt healthy eating options for the sake of the child.
Rule 5 – Avoid bribing the child
Try not to reward or bribe the child by offering or promising food stuff. Most of us develop this bad habit of combining food with all situations, moods, and occasion. Happy? eat, Sad? eat, the child does some good job we reward them with some chocolates or toffees or if we want the child to do something, we bribe them with food! The child is being taught this way right from the tender age that food is something which is taken all the time without even asking the body if it needs at all or not.
Eating is good, but not knowing what we eat is definitely a practice to be changed.
If we develop the habit of looking at food as medicine, we can certainly avoid eating medicine as food.
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