Healthy eating habits can promote children's physical and intellectual development. According to a survey by child nutrition experts from the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, about two-thirds of children in China have the habit of being picky eaters and refusing certain foods, which can easily lead to a lack of some essential nutrients, making them "malnourished due to a deficiency of certain nutrients" or simply obese due to picky eating.
Guan Yang, a chief nutritionist at the Rocket Army General Hospital, draws on his extensive experience to discuss the causes and solutions for children's imbalanced diet (picky eating, picky eating) that most parents are concerned about.
Why are children picky eaters?
Bad mood
There are many reasons for unpleasant meals in young children, among which the impact of too many snacks and unpalatable food is the most prominent. In addition, the dining environment, children eating while playing, talking, or looking around also indirectly affect their dining mood.
Bad habits
Young children take a long time to eat, which is not only bad for their digestion but also brings a lot of inconvenience to parents, causing parents to pass on their bad mood to the children, which further affects their eating.
Solutions for picky eating
Create a good dining environment
Parents should try to arrange quiet activities before meals to help calm the child's excited mood. They can use distraction or appropriate pre-meal education to introduce the dishes and snacks to be tasted to arouse the child's appetite. Parents should not scold children during meals and help them enjoy the food with a happy mood.
Cultivate good eating habits
Parents should have scientific and reasonable feeding concepts (diversify food types), use appropriate cooking methods such as steaming, boiling, stewing, braising, simmering, and stewing, and avoid methods such as frying, roasting, and baking. The taste should be light.
Vary the cooking methods and food types for each meal, and give children the opportunity to participate in food processing, which will effectively increase their interest in tasting food. In addition, meals should be regular and定量.
Control meal time
Do not watch TV during meals, and do not talk loudly among family members. When feeding a child, parents should not use toys to tease or words to encourage. Parents need to demonstrate the actions of eating, chewing, and swallowing, not just the action of feeding. This gives the child a correct role model to learn from and learn to eat quietly and focused.
Reduce snacks and set an example
Parents should be fully aware that eating too many snacks will affect the normal amount of food intake, so parents should pay attention to the amount of snacks they buy and educate their children about snack consumption in their daily lives, using fresh fruits and nuts as substitutes. The younger the child, the more easily they are influenced by their mother's eating behavior, so parents should pay attention to their good role modeling for their children.