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Junk food for babies


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 she is 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 she 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 her 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.

The worst foods for babies

Babies need lots of nutrients, but have tiny stomachs – and you don't want your baby to fill up on empty calories instead of the vitamins and minerals needed to grow. At the top of the list of foods to avoid are choking hazards such as whole grapes, whole nuts, hot dogs, popcorn, and large chunks of nut butter. Other unsafe foods for babies include honey and unpasteurized foods. Soda, juice, and fruit drinks aren't healthy for babies – they're high in sugar and provide no nutrients. Same goes for fast foods and processed foods, since these are often high in saturated fat, sugar, and sodium.

Babies don't need many calories, but they do need lots of nutrients. Yet some foods commonly offered to babies are high in calories, sugar, or salt, and low in nutrients.

Because babies are so small, it's easy for them to fill up quickly on foods with empty calories, leaving no room for nutrient-rich healthy foods. This nutritional deficit can even hinder development, says doctor and registered dietitian Christine Gerbstadt.

That's why it's important to know which foods are best for babies and which ones to avoid, including unhealthy choices and potential choking hazards. Here's our list of the worst foods for babies.

Unsafe foods

Hard, sticky, slippery, chunky, and round foods are unsafe for young children because they can easily choke on them. Hot dogs, sausages, large pieces of meat or cheese, whole grapes, popcorn, chunky raw vegetables, and whole nuts and seeds are all choking hazards. Chunky nut butters and other sticky foods – such as jelly or gummy candies, dried fruit, and marshmallows – can also get stuck in your child's throat.

Once you start serving your baby finger foods, be sure to cut food into pieces no larger than half an inch.

Honey is off-limits for babies – don't give your little one any foods containing raw or cooked honey. It can contain the Clostridium botulinum organism, which can cause serious illness or death among infants.

Never give your baby unpasteurized foods or beverages, such as unpasteurized juices or "raw" milk, yogurt, or cheeses. They could contain harmful bacteria and parasites.

Learn more about foods that can be unsafe for your baby. 

Fast food and processed foods

Fast food and highly processed foods are often loaded with saturated fat, sugar, salt, and calories and low in healthy nutrients. They shouldn't be on the menu for your baby.

People define "processed" in different ways, but in general, the more the food is modified from what was originally caught, raised, or grown – and the longer the list of ingredients – the more processed it is.

"The more processed the food, the more nutritional value tends to go down, and the more the sugar, salt, and fat content goes up," says Kate Geagan, dietitian and author of Go Green, Get Lean.

Check nutrition labels when choosing packaged baby food. The best baby foods have few ingredients and no added salt, sugar, or modified food starch.

Ready-to-eat foods meant for older children and adults aren't the best choice for babies. "They often contain way too much sodium," says dietitian Eileen Behan, author of The Baby Food Bible.

For example, instead of serving canned pasta entrees, it's better to boil some noodles and sprinkle some cheese on top. And instead of serving deli meats, which are often high in sodium and carry a risk of food poisoning, cut up small bits of roast chicken or hamburger.

Juice, fruit drinks, and soda

It's not surprising to see soda on this list. Whether regular or diet, soda provides no nutrients, and filling up on either type means babies eat and drink less of the nutritious food their bodies really need. Regular soda also contains loads of sugar, which can cause tooth decay. Added sugars aren't recommended at all for children under 24 months.

But fruit drinks ... and even 100-percent juice? Sure, these beverages contain fruit, but that doesn't mean they're healthy. The fiber in fresh fruit is largely lost in the juicing process, and what's left is a whole lot of sugar. Juice can also cause diarrhea in some babies.

"Juice is basically a waste of calories," says pediatrician Ari Brown, coauthor of Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year. Using juice to sweeten your baby's food isn't a good idea either: The sugars in juice can make food pass through the digestive tract more quickly, interfering with the body's ability to absorb nutrients.

And don't be fooled by advertisers' claims that juice provides babies with necessary vitamin C. "Babies can easily get their vitamin C from one small serving of fruit," says Brown.

Juice isn't recommended for babies younger than 12 months. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that babies younger than 6 months drink only breast milk or formula. From 6 to 12 months they can have small amounts of water, but breast milk or formula should still be their main beverage. 

After your baby's first birthday, whole cow's milk is the recommended beverage (though your toddler can continue breastfeeding as long as you both enjoy it). Your toddler can have a small daily serving of 100-percent juice, but the AAP still recommends limiting juice for all kids. 

Learn more about the best and worst drinks for kids.

Learn more:

Age-by-age guide to feeding your baby

Baby food revolution: New rules for feeding your baby

How to make your own baby food

Harmful foods for children

The body of a small child is still very weak, any careless action can bring an imbalance into this extremely fragile system. The baby's digestive system is especially susceptible to all sorts of threats, because the child is just learning to eat adult food.

We all know what is healthy and necessary for a child to eat. But we often forget that some foods can be harmful to health, especially for the health of the child. What are these products?

Of course, everyone's favorite sweets - sweets, cakes, cookies are in the first place. These products do not carry any benefit; neither vitamins nor minerals enter the body with them. In addition, sweets discourage appetite for healthier foods, which also does not add benefits. Therefore, the child should be given confectionery very rarely, in small quantities.

It is also important to remember that sweets damage teeth and can affect the normal development of a child's teeth.

Canned fruits and vegetables should also be avoided. Fresh fruits and vegetables are much healthier for your child. Canned meat and fish may contain various chemical additives that give them an appetizing appearance and flavor. But these additives are extremely hazardous to health. Do not give these products to children!

Sweet carbonated water - irreparable harm to a fragile child's body! Doctors never tire of repeating how dangerous this product is. Indeed, in addition to sugar, soda contains many chemical dyes and flavors that simply “kill” the human digestive system. It is better not to give the baby the opportunity to fall in love with sweet soda.

Fast food is practically the quintessence of all harmful things. In such, so to speak, food, a lot of saturated fats and carbohydrates, synthetic additives and substitutes. Pediatricians urge parents not to accustom children to fast food.

Chips, croutons and other snacks are also known for their "harmfulness". A lot of fat and chemicals are also used in the production of these products. Therefore, to preserve the health of the child, such food should not be given to him.

Even such familiar foods as boiled and smoked sausages, meat and fish delicacies are very harmful to the child's body due to their saturation with various spices and additives.

Separately, it is worth mentioning mushrooms - they should not be eaten by small children. Not only are mushrooms generally difficult to digest by the human body, but also modern ecology makes this product even more dangerous. After all, mushrooms absorb from the environment all those harmful substances that are in it.

Unfortunately, we ourselves, the parents of , teach the child to harmful products. It is we who promise the child sweets as a reward. This is us taking the kid to fast food on holidays. And we ourselves eat all those harmful foods from which we so want to protect our children.

In order to provide the child with all the necessary nutrients and not harm the fragile health of children, you need to remember that boiled, baked or steamed food is more beneficial for the child. The less fried food in the baby's diet, the better. You should prepare dishes for the child from natural, high-quality products, without various preservatives, sweeteners and flavor enhancers.

Children's menu: the dangers of junk food

Civilization brings many useful discoveries, including in cooking. But at the same time, there are many substitute products, improvers, acidifiers, sweeteners, dyes and other harmful “chemistry” that are added to food. Most often, such, frankly, poisonous food is chosen by children. They just like the taste, smell and bright packaging. What exactly is impossible for children, and how to teach them to eat right?

Mariyat Mukhina

nutritionist, doctor of medical sciences

The task of adults is not only to explain to the child what to eat, but what is better to stay away from. It is important to form proper eating habits in him.

How to teach children to eat healthy, the expert tells Roskachestvo and aif. ru

This should be excluded from the children's menu

Chips. Daily chips easily add 3-4 kilograms of weight to a child in a year. But the problem here is not only in the fat mass. The composition of additives that are used in the preparation of potato or corn chips, in combination with carcinogens leads to metabolic failure. This, in turn, adversely affects the development of internal organs.

Soda. A lot has been written about carbonated drinks, but neither the abundance of sugar in them, nor the list of chemical compounds on the label of children stop them. However, so do parents. But if a reasonable adult at least once thoughtfully read the composition of a carbonated drink, his love for this blessing of civilization will noticeably decrease in him. Obesity is the most harmless thing that regular consumption of soda leads to. The consequences are horrendous: from diseases of the digestive system to diabetes and even cancer. Meanwhile, sweet drinks do not quench your thirst, after half an hour you want to drink again.

Sausages and sausages. Their modern children love more than vegetables and fruits. But the children here, in general, are not to blame. This is fast food, we buy it ourselves so as not to stand at the stove. It turns out saving time in exchange for the health of the child. There are no sausages without harmful substances and an abundance of fat! Unless it's a farm or homemade product. In ordinary sausages, for the most part, there are starch, emulsions, flavoring additives, a nitrite-curing mixture and many other substances that negatively affect the formation of a child's body.

Roskachestvo reminds that if you want to feed your child with sausages, pay attention to products with a Quality Mark - for example, according to the standard of the Russian Quality System, Dairy sausages claiming a Quality Mark should not contain starch, preservatives (benzoic and sorbic acids) and dyes: E102, E110, E124, E131, E132.

Fast food. How many times have the world been told that hamburgers, french fries, fried pies, whites and donuts do not benefit anyone except their manufacturers and sellers! Carcinogens, a huge amount of fat, incongruous foods, an insane amount of calories for one lunch - that's what fast food is.

Chocolate bars with "nougat, caramel and coconut". Unfortunately, their composition is noticeably different from the advertising one in favor of the abundance of "chemistry" and fat. They have a huge amount of calories, going mainly to fat on the sides and hips. By the way, they satisfy hunger for a short time, they will not be able to eat.

Store-bought sauces and mayonnaises . Here the problem is in the abundance of flavoring additives, in a large amount of fat and, most unpleasantly, in vinegar. When stored in plastic packaging, it provokes the release of dangerous carcinogens from the container into the sauce. With constant use, carcinogens accumulate in the child's body, leading to various diseases.

Crab sticks and shrimp. They are not as harmless as we used to think. The former are made from cheap varieties of fish - unfortunately, not always of good quality. They have quite a lot of starch. At the same time, flavors and dyes are added to the crab sticks for a presentation and smell. And shrimp are often grown in special water with antibiotics.

Cakes, cakes and buns are, of course, possible. But very carefully. The cheaper the product, the more flavors and dyes it contains. Plus a huge amount of fat and sugar in any pastry, leading to metabolic disorders and acid-base balance, and as a result - to obesity.

Jelly marmalade, colorful lollipops, rubber marshmallow and other newfangled sweets with sugar consist of thickeners, sweeteners, flavors, fillers, stabilizers and emulsifiers. I hope your appetite has already disappeared and from now on you will go around the counters with such goods for half a verst.

Reference:

In no case should sweets be offered to children as a reward for eating lunch. Otherwise, sweetness becomes more attractive, and dinner becomes hateful.

How to teach a child to eat healthy food?

First of all, by example. If they don’t eat junk food in the house, then the child, of course, occasionally wants to try it - there’s nowhere to go from advertising and offers from friends. But every day he will want what he got used to from an early age. Scientists say that even during pregnancy and breastfeeding, mother's cravings for certain foods are passed on to the child. It is important to prepare the right snacks in advance so that children between main meals do not grab cookies or candy from the table, but fruit or granulated bran. Delicious and healthy at the same time.

If there is soda or sweet store-bought juice in the refrigerator, you can give a 100% guarantee that the child will drink them first of all, and not vital clean water. Therefore, the water filter should be in the most visible place so that it constantly catches the eye.

Watch what your child eats and praise the right choice. Focus on those products, the consumption of which leads to health, beauty and excellent sports achievements - depending on what the child is passionate about.

Most unhealthy foods can be found with healthy substitutes.
Potato and corn chips are replaced with dried fruit slices.
Instead of candy, you can eat dried fruits and dried berries. It is important not to confuse with candied fruits, in which there is no less sugar than in candies.

Establishing regular meals reduces the number of snacks, which means it allows you to better control what children eat. If breakfasts, lunches and dinners are held at a common table with adults, the opportunities to intercept a couple of spoons of jam instead of soup are significantly reduced.

Let the kids participate in the menu design so they become more interested in the outcome. It is always nice to get exactly what you ordered, what you like for dinner. You should not force your child to eat unloved foods, no matter how useful they may be. You can always find an equally useful replacement.

And pay attention to the fact that healthy products are of high quality. For example, cottage cheese.

While eating, it is important to maintain a pleasant atmosphere. It is better to postpone the showdown and "debriefing" for another time. TVs and tablets should also be turned off. When a person is busy watching a cartoon or TV show, his brain does not think about food, which adversely affects digestion and leads to obesity.

Reference:

By the way, the correct process of eating can be learned from kids. They eat only when they are hungry, chewing food thoroughly, giving it all their attention. And they stop eating as soon as they are full. At the same time, children under three years old cannot be forced to eat foods that they do not like.

Learn more