Mum, I Don’t Life That!
Brought up in a world where consumerism is taking over, we have a tendency to give our children what they want when they want it – but are we really doing the right thing?
What we feed our children has a major impact on their future health whether we are prepared to admit it or not. Nutritionally we as a society have a habit of starting out on the wrong foot at a very early age with the nutritional ‘foot printing’ of our children. Many children start out life on the prepackaged formula milk mixtures fortified with every known (and probably a few unknown) added vitamin and mineral that our children are supposed to need for their healthy growth. If this is the case, then why are our children becoming obese at such an early age? Maybe because they are getting more than they really need. For answer to your nutritional questions, the best answers often come from our parents or in this case more specifically our grand parents. What did they feed our parents? Why have we changed? Is convenience now more important than the health of our children?
All too often we introduce sugar at an early age, and the taste for sugar has a cumulative effect on our diet with the taste of sugar feeding the sensation, where by you need more sugar to sate our appetite for sugar. How often have you offered your children a ‘sweet treat’ as a reward? This is ‘foot printing’ at its worst, where by you a telling your child that they deserve a nutritional disaster for being good. Once your children have moved onto solid foods, avoid sweetened foods as much as possible. Fresh fruits instead of ice-cream and cookies are a good start. Fresh fruit juices diluted with 50/50 with water are much more nutritionally beneficial to your child’s health than colas and other sweetened drinks trust upon us by big business. Traditional Thai rice dishes like Khao Tom are much better than toasted ‘white bread’ with sweetened margarine and jam or sugar laden ‘children’s breakfast cereals’, as they provide carbohydrates, fibre, water and low in fats and sugars. This is not to say that we should eliminate all those sugar sweets and treats from our children’s diets, as this is probably virtually impossible anyway. Just eliminate them from their every day diet and you will be increasing their chances of avoiding the cravings that sugar can cause.
Artificial colours, chemical preservatives and flavour enhancers were not around when our grand parents were growing up, or at least not in the quantities that they are today. Far too many children have allergies to these products as they are not required nutritionally by our bodies. What happened to eating ‘natural foods’? Why does everything have to be processed? Why is ‘fast food’ so much more appetizing to our children when we know that fresh vegetables will provide them with greater nutritional benefit? Come to think of it, when did YOU last eat your vegetables? Vegetables provide vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals as well as fibre both soluble and insoluble that is essential to our health and wellbeing. You, as with your children, do not have to take nutritional supplementation if you are following a commonsense healthy eating plan – if in doubt consult your health care professional. A well balanced nutritional intake should minimizing if not eliminating completely many of those childhood ailments such as colic, hyperactivity, bed wetting and repertory infections.
Good nutrition a young age is essential, to the point that some of the world’s governments will even provide meals at school. This is because studies have shown that a hungry or malnourished child has a reduced ability to concentrate on their studies, thereby minimizing their ability to learn and potentially reducing their job opportunities in later life. Unfortunately it is often the socio-economically deprived that need this assistance but all too often it is the governments in these countries that are most corrupt preventing the assistance that will help to maximize the potentials of their citizens.
So think a little longer before you serve your child’s next meal. Are you opening the floodgates of ill health because it is more convenient to give your child French fries, a slice of pizza, a glass of cola, deep fried banana or a bowl of ice-cream because they ‘like it’ or are you just avoiding your responsibility towards your child’s future health?