Baby eating fast food

Babies and junk food - Ovia Health

As babies get older, the ultimate parent dilemma arises when they start to love something their parents really wish they didn’t. Case in point: junk food. Your baby may have recently started liking junk foods, and while it feels great to fill their eager hands with tiny treats, many aren’t as healthy as you might like.

Snacks are great for helping young children go between meals without getting cranky from hunger. But a lot of junk food gets marketed as a quick and portable snack for kids. In reality, junk food – like crackers, chips, pretzels, candy bars, cookies, popsicles, and fruit gummies, for example – is too low in nutrition, and shouldn’t be a staple of any baby’s diet.

The problem with babies and junk food

There are a few reasons why children at this age shouldn’t be fed junk food, no matter how tasty. Junk food is high in calories and sugar. At this age, a baby is developing at a rapid rate and needs nutrients from whole, healthy foods. Studies show that the earlier children are exposed to junk food, the greater the chance they’ll have future health problems from eating too much of it. In other words, when children start eating junk food matters, and the earlier they begin, the more their health is at risk.

Another reason why junk food isn’t the best choice is because eating those foods this young can affect the kinds of food that your baby prefers to eat. At this young age, babies are developing taste preferences that stick around with them for quite some time. The foods a baby eats in the earliest years of life affect their future eating patterns, so it’s best if you’re able to get your baby accustomed to the tastes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and other unprocessed food options.

What you can do

If this sounds daunting, don’t worry – it’s easier than you think to help your baby avoid junk food (things will get a little harder when they are a toddler, though). Here are some foolproof ways to keep your baby’s diet nutritious and delicious.

Avoid baby-marketed snacks: Store-bought baby snacks are easy, portable, and fun – but they are also usually high in sugar and low in nutrients. They’re also usually more expensive than ‘adult’ food. Your baby can eat most of the foods that you eat, provided that it’s cut up into very small pieces, and they will get more nutrition out of it, too.
Read ingredients before you buy: If you want to buy snacks for your baby, make sure you glance at the ingredients list before tossing anything in your shopping cart. Try to spring for the products that don’t have a lot of ingredients or dyes. The foods that are best are the ones that have whole grains, fruits, or vegetables at the top of a short ingredient list. Ideally, it’s healthiest to buy fresh food whenever you can.
Pick “plain” foods and make them fun your way: For example, try buying plain yogurt – yes, the old fashioned kind. You can give it on its own, or you can add your own fresh toppings like berries (fresh or frozen), honey (once your child is older than one year), or a mild sprinkling of spices, like cinnamon. By picking yogurt without added sugars, colors, and other unnecessary ingredients you are teaching them to enjoy healthier options.
Make your own when you can: If you have a dehydrator lying around somewhere, now’s a good time to pull it out and start making dehydrated fruit, which can serve as tasty portable snacks for your baby. There are tons of recipes online for homemade baby snacks, too.
Avoid over-snacking: Snacks can be a great way to keep babies from getting too hungry between meals, and to help keep blood sugar levels steady, but when snacks start to become habits, or comfort activities, they can help to form negative eating patterns that could cause problems later. Having scheduled snack times can help to avoid this habit.

Helping your baby develop healthy eating habits is more about the journey than the destination. It’s about the little steps that you take, every day, to get them comfortable with eating whole foods and balanced meals. Best of all, it benefits your baby’s health in so many different ways.

Sources

Samantha Olson. “Unhealthy Eating Habits Begin As Early As Infancy; Formula-Feeding, Junk Food Should Be Avoided At All Costs.” MedicalDaily. IBT Media Inc., Nov 2 2014. Web.
Xiaozhong Wen, Kai Ling Kong, Rina Das Eiden, Neha Navneet Sharma, Chuanbo Xie. “Sociodemographic Differences and Infant Dietary Patterns.” Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics, Oct 2014. Web.
“Childhood Obesity Facts.” CDC. US Department of Health and Human Services, Aug 27 2015. Web.

Babies are eating junk food before they’re even old enough to chew – SheKnows

The best parent is one who tries their best. It’s a tough gig, and we all do what we can to keep our kids happy, healthy and safe. Mistakes are made and lessons learned. But there are some things you just shouldn’t do — and one is giving babies junk food.

Related story When (& How) to Start Your Baby on Solids

More: How baby food could be turning kids into picky eaters

Unbelievably there are some parents who are feeding their infants — some as young as 5 months old – candy, chips and soda, according to a study carried out by scientists at England’s Leeds Beckett University. Over two years, they gathered information on the diets of 1,250 children aged 12 to 18 months in the city of Bradford and were alarmed to find that some tots are being raised on a diet of fatty, sugary junk food — in some cases before they’re even old enough to chew properly.

Lead author Pinki Sahota revealed that some parents fed their children who couldn’t walk yet things like soda and potato chips up to seven times a week. The mother of one overweight infant revealed that she cuts fries into little pieces and squeezes the potato into his mouth.

One mother who was asked about how much cooking she did at home told researchers, “Not much — we send them down the road to get burger, chips and a drink for 99 pence.”

Another horrific example was of one baby’s teeth coming in black because so much soda had been given via their bottle.

More: Finally, a mom got honest about just how easy it is to screw up

“The fact that children are having this kind of food at such an early age is concerning enough. But parents are establishing bad eating habits for life,” said Sahota.

Sahota, who is chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity, said low-educated, younger mothers tended to be the worst, because many of them don’t have the cooking skills to make nutritious meals for their kids, while older, more educated parents were aware of the importance of fruit and vegetables.

“Parents are giving kids junk food because they are eating it themselves,” explained Sahota, who is urging authorities to focus on education.

“Schools have a role, then midwives, health visitors and local authorities,” she said. “But they need to be supported by the food industry. They could reformulate some of their high-fat and high-sugar products.”

More: 20 things to ask a guy before you decide to have his baby

Sahota is absolutely right — education is key. It’s easy to judge parents who feed their babies junk food, but can they be blamed if they don’t know any better? Or is it the responsibility of every parent to educate themselves about healthy eating to ensure their kids don’t suffer?

Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below.

The child asks for fast food all the time. What to do?

Burger, fries and soda! Let's not dissemble: for many adults, these words sound like a synonym for happiness. But we can control ourselves (not exactly), but children often get so used to fast food that they begin to refuse ordinary homemade food. What to do? We deal with nutritionist Irina Ryl and child psychologist Elena Mironova.

Question. My child is 5 years old. He recently tried fast food. Now he refuses to eat normal homemade food, constantly asking for a burger or fries. What to do?

Answer.

Irina Ryl, nutritionist:

The reason for a child’s passion for junk food, including fast food, can be both psychological in nature (forbidden fruit is always sweet, testing the limits of your patience), and physiological — deficiency of vitamins and minerals . As a result, eating habits also change.

For example, a child lacks magnesium or animal protein in the diet for full development, and this affects the change in taste preferences. Then it is necessary to add nuts, beans, whole grain cereals, seeds, bulgur and other foods rich in magnesium to his diet, and to compensate for the lack of animal protein - poultry, rabbit, beef.

A change in eating habits also occurs with anemia - in other words, a lack of iron in the body. Then it is worth introducing liver, veal, tongue and other products into the child’s diet that replenish the balance of iron in the body.

It is worth checking for any micronutrient deficiencies only together with a pediatrician or nutritionist. And even more so, you shouldn’t overfeed your child with vitamins without a doctor’s prescription.

The desire of a child to eat only sausages and pasta in some cases may also indicate problems with the gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract), for example, this may signal a violation of nutrient absorption. A pediatrician or gastroenterologist will help you deal with the problem.

But completely forbidding a child what he loves is also not an option

Fast food can be useful: the same burgers, for example, can be prepared at home, just use whole grain bread for them, good meat for a cutlet and not overdo it with sauces. By the way, if you add a little tomato paste to the minced meat, the taste will be very similar to instant burgers.

Elena Mironova, psychologist:

A huge role in the formation of dependence on food is played by the contact between parents and a child in early childhood. If from the very beginning we perceive the physical or emotional discomfort of the child as hunger and try to resolve any of his dissatisfaction with the help of food, then in the end the child simply will not learn to understand whether he wants to eat due to a physiological need or because, for example, he is sad, offended or scary. Thus, any such emotion will be "jammed" and not spoken out, for example, with a parent or other loved one.

If you understand that this is the problem, then it is important to start teaching the child (and show it by example) that failure or sadness is normal. And share it, speak this thought. You need to let the child cry if he wants to, respond sincerely if he asks for advice, not get annoyed if he does not know how to do something. It is also worth just spending more time with the child in close contact: play, walk, engage in creativity so that he feels natural supports and does not look for them somewhere outside (for example, in food, computer games and other addictions).

If the parents "eat" stress themselves and the child sees this, he will copy this behavior and he will automatically develop the stereotype "when I feel bad, I have to eat."

Another reason for addiction to "bad" food is directly visiting fast food establishments with the child or ordering such food at home. After all, a small child cannot go to a cafe on his own, place an order, buy something for himself. Parents do this, and only they decide how often.

The child also cannot independently determine which food is healthy and which is harmful, because taste plays a key role for him. Plus, children have poorly developed willpower.

A child may also perceive such food and visits to such establishments as something related to entertainment or a holiday. This happens if the child lacks positive emotions. For example, parents rarely host family parties, play with their child, or go out to events.

The problem should be solved comprehensively. Firstly, explain to the child, for example, in the form of a game (you can use the options "Hot Potato", "Edible - Inedible", a game with cards), or in the format of a fairy tale, in which examples are given: which food is healthy and which is not. Just don't read a long lecture from some website. The child will not accept this information anyway. It should be simple, understandable, accessible.

Next, it is important to let him know that tasty and unusual food can be cooked at home. Homemade burgers, grilled sausages, rustic potatoes, rolls in pita bread - all this can be harmless. You can also cook a delicious holiday cake with your child, which rarely appears at your home, make decoration for it, arrange a cozy tea party and turn such afternoon snacks into a tradition. And in general, start making food at home more atmospheric - set the table, serve dishes beautifully, eat not under TV, but while talking.

An active lifestyle will also indirectly help to cope with the problem - if a child walks a lot and spends time actively on the street, regularly goes in for sports, spends a lot of energy, he, as a rule, will eat homemade food with pleasure.

Ask your question to Mel, and the editors will find someone who can answer it. Write to our social networks - we read all messages on the pages on Facebook, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. You can also write to us on Instagram. By the way, we do not disclose names, so questions can be anything (feel free!).

For help in preparing the material, we thank our intern Anna Vakhonin.

Photo: Shutterstock / Collage: “Chalk”

Is it really possible to feed the child correctly so that he ate with pleasure

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04/16/2023 04:00

Irina Nevinnaya

Children can spend an hour poking around in a salad and flatly refuse healthy fish in favor of sausages with pasta or doshirak. “Fast food is harmful,” parents learned the axiom, but they are often unable to overcome their own child. Is it really possible to feed a child correctly, but in such a way that he eats with pleasure?

Victims of fast food are in front of everyone's eyes. But for some reason, our children are not afraid. / Social networks

Look at yourself

No wonder that children love pasta and sausages, adore fast food. The child eats what the family eats.

"We studied the nutrition of children under three years of age and made sure that there are few vegetables and fruits in the diets of babies, but french fries, chips, mayonnaise, semi-finished products, sausage are often present. Unfortunately, not all mothers like to cook. Sausages - quickly and seemingly It takes time and desire to make delicious stewed vegetables, salad, and cook fish. children's nutritionist, leading researcher at the Federal Research Center for Nutrition and Biotechnology, author of a series of books on children's nutrition Maria Gmoshinskaya.

What to do? It’s good if a mother (or both parents) cook quality food, and even better if they involve their daughter or son in this - right from kindergarten age. It is then that the habit of normal eating, the mode of eating, the volume of the portion, and the behavior at the table is formed by itself.

Why we love fast food

Everyone knows the negative properties of fast food: too much saturated fat, salt and sugar, calorie content goes off scale. Nutritionists also warn about other hazards: fat peroxidation products, melanoidins, acrylamides. All this irritates the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines. You sit on such food for a month or two - and gastritis is guaranteed.

"The sauces used for burgers contain monosodium glutamate, which enhances the taste sensation by increasing the sensitivity of tongue receptors. And in 2002, it was discovered that the human tongue has L-glutamate receptors, which are responsible for a completely separate taste called umami . That's why such food seems especially tasty to us," the expert explains.

In addition, glutamate, due to its action on the central nervous system, increases appetite and gastric secretion - and we ourselves, without noticing it, eat more than we need. Combining a rich burger flavor with sweet fizzy soda is another challenge. Because it's delicious now, and warnings that all this is not useful are calculated "for later."

What to do? “I wouldn’t ban it completely,” says Maria Gmoszynska. “Forbidden fruit is sweet, teenagers with pocket money will go and eat what they want. Perhaps it’s better to arrange a family trip to a cafe from time to time. Both parents and children".

Instead of lunch - a burger with soda, for an afternoon snack - a piece of cake or a bun - you really can't live like that

But even better - cook the "right" burger yourself at home. In fact, the food is good: cutlet, bun, vegetables, greens. If you do not overdo it with salt, sugar, sauces, it turns out both tasty and healthy. And it is better to drink it not with sweet soda, but with hot tea.

What's for breakfast

"Children don't like porridge because their parents don't eat it themselves and rarely cook it. But cereals are a source of complex carbohydrates we need, although again it takes time to cook. But we would like something faster. For example, have you included buckwheat porridge as a side dish in your diet for a long time?

What to do? The variety of cereals now sometimes surprises, new ones appear. Porridge can and should be included in the family menu, a habit will appear - and children will not refuse them in the garden and school. At the same time, you can sometimes use ready-made breakfasts: cereals, balls, pillows, stars - it's fast and tasty. In addition, they are often enriched with vitamins and minerals. But still, it is better to offer ready-made breakfasts to a child no more than twice a week, just for a change. And it is necessary to strive to ensure that the child eats other healthy foods for breakfast - eggs, cottage cheese and full-fledged cereals.

What mistakes parents make in their children's diet

- Lack of regimen and uncontrolled snacking lead to overeating.

- Sukhomyatka - the main meals should be hot (porridge, second course, soup).

- Eating at the computer, watching TV.

- Replacement of main meals and snacks with high-calorie foods. Instead of lunch - a burger, fries and soda; for an afternoon snack - a couple of buns.

- Absence of a full meal during the day. The child comes home from school hungry - this leads to overeating, overload of the gastrointestinal tract, sleep disturbance.

- Food on the street, on the go, dry food. In addition to the problem of dirty hands, wrong eating habits are formed.

- Lack of water. The child takes thirst for hunger and begins to eat, instead of just drinking.

- Uncontrolled consumption of sweet drinks (juice, compote, soda).

- Salting food without tasting the food. Excess salt causes diseases of the heart, kidneys, joints, and edema. Therefore, you need to try to eat less canned food, semi-finished products.

Opinions

Eat fast - eat more

Fatima Dzgoeva, endocrinologist, nutritionist, National Research Center for Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia:

- A direct relationship between fast food consumption and obesity in children and adolescents has been scientifically proven.

A study of more than 2,000 schoolchildren aged 12-13 found that the ratio between waist and height in teenagers was directly correlated with fast food consumption. A two-fold difference in calorie intake was also found between active and calm children: "fast" eaters consume an average of 75% more kcal than "slow" ones. That is why it is important to teach your child not to rush at the table, eat slowly and chew food longer. This is especially important for overweight and obese children.

It is important to understand that eating behavior is formed and stabilized at an early age, which is associated with higher energy intake and rapid weight gain in children under 5 years of age. Therefore, it is necessary to strive to improve eating habits from the first years of a child's life.

In 1885, American Charles Creetors invented the popcorn cart right in front of customers, and popcorn quickly became a favorite street food, and then an indispensable addition to the movie show. In theaters in the US and Europe, it is on sale from 1912 years old Photo: Social networks

A stick and a carrot will not help

Tatyana Zelenkova-Zakharchuk, psychotherapist, National Research Center for Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia:

- Many children associate fast food with a sense of joy from going to a cafe together with their parents, gifts from a children's set food. Others have an example of parents who find it easier to order fast food home delivery due to lack of time to cook. Chronic fatigue, anxiety, depressive states with apathy in the parents themselves cannot be excluded, and then ordering fast food pathologically compensates for the lack of joy in everyday life for all family members. That is, depressive disorders are often the cause of eating disorders. And then the answer is "What to do?" suggests itself: cure depression, and everything will return to normal. And food, and weight, too.

But not everything is so simple. Babies have an innate preference for sweet and salty tastes, as well as an innate aversion to sour and bitter tastes, which is directed towards consuming food rich in energy and protein. And if you look even deeper at the problem, then it, that is, unhealthy food preferences, is laid in the womb and is a consequence of eating behavior during pregnancy.

Infants' innate preferences may lead to rejection of certain healthy foods, such as tart (bitter) tasting vegetables.

Interestingly, the odors of foods consumed by the mother during breastfeeding are present in breast milk. Some studies have shown that if mothers drank carrot juice during the last weeks before giving birth, their babies later showed a greater preference for complementary foods that tasted like carrots. Breastfed babies tend to be more receptive to new tastes than formula-fed babies.

Numerous studies conducted with children aged 2 to 13 years have shown that breastfed children consume more fruits and vegetables than their formula-fed peers. Complementary foods begin to be given to the child in addition to mother's milk from the age of 4-6 months, and his taste preferences are formed as a result of repeated exposure to these products.

The problem of limiting children's choice of unhealthy food is quite complex. Studies have shown that intentionally limiting sugary and salty foods often increases children's preference for them. Therefore, a regular strict ban on unhealthy food is an unsuccessful strategy. It is better to take a different approach: involve children in the preparation of food and ensure free access to fruits and vegetables.

Some parents use the tactic of "rewarding" their children for eating enough food they don't like. But forcing people to eat unloved food further provokes its rejection.