Healthy Eating Habits and Child Nutrition: A Comprehensive Approach
Healthy Eating and Child Nutrition
Health and Food: Food shortages in the first year of life can cause misalignments in growth parameters and development. Malnutrition may cause very serious disturbances in the child. Children aged 0-6 are a vulnerable group in the area of malnutrition. Adequate food habits prevent developmental disorders. The first stage is to establish eating habits.
Eating Habits: Eating habits are born in the family and reinforced in school. Cooperation and coordination between the family and the educational center are key. Currently, problems are due to bad eating habits and lack of physical activity. Children are sponges that take in everything around them. The family revolves around experiences that enrich, and schools will offer the progressive acquisition of autonomy.
Food: A voluntary and conscious act by which we prepare and eat food.
Nutrition: An involuntary and unconscious act by which the body receives, transforms, and uses nutrients (in food). Cells get the energy necessary to perform their functions and repair their structures and grow.
Dietetics: The study of diets. It provides an adequate diet for each person based on their physiological and psychological needs.
Food: A product or substance that fulfills a function and contributes materials to the body.
Nourishing Nutrients: Essential for the maintenance of living organisms. Nutrients include carbohydrates, lipids, proteins (digestion), water, minerals, and vitamins (absorption).
Differences in Food and Nutrition: Food is willingly and knowingly consumed. Nutrition is unintentional and unconscious. Nutrition depends on the feeding, and the body uses what it receives. Greater quality and variety of food equals a greater number of nutrients.
Factors Influencing the Food Market:
- Cultural: A strong factor, as tradition is transmitted.
- Geographic: The type of crop, livestock, water availability, and fishing.
- Social: The group to which each individual belongs.
- Economic: Families are based on price and not nutritional value.
- Educational: Changes according to educational level, time, psychological factors, etc.
- Preparation Methods: Pleasure, interest, and respect for food create healthy eating habits.
The Nutrition Process
A process where the body converts food to obtain energy and nutrients.
Ingestion: In the mouth, teeth grind food. Through insalivation, food becomes the food bolus. It is launched from the tongue to the edge of the throat and then the esophagus empties into the stomach.
Digestion: Fragmentation of the bolus with mucus and gastric juice transforms it into chyme.
Absorption and Transport Metabolism: The chyme is mixed with mucus, pancreatic juice, bile, and intestinal juice. Digested carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, bile juice emulsifies fat, and the small intestine digests carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, turning them into monosaccharides, amino acids, and fatty acids. All of these form chyle. Nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine and reach the blood. Vitamins do not need to be digested. The rest follow intestinal transit through the large intestine.
Bowel Elimination: Substances the body does not use are stored in the colon waiting to be eliminated.
Nutrient Functions
- Plastic or Structural: Restoration, training, and construction of body structures. This is performed by proteins and minerals (calcium and phosphorus).
- Energetic: They provide the energy your body needs for metabolism and muscle tone. These are lipids and carbohydrates.
- Regulating: Regulates metabolic reactions that occur in the body. These are vitamins and minerals.
Types of Nutrients
Carbohydrates: This term is used for monosaccharides (simple sugars like glucose and fructose) and disaccharides that are soluble in water (sucrose, maltose, lactose). Others, such as starch (polysaccharide), are not sweet. Their mission is to provide energy to the body. They are found in pasta, tubers, and cereals. In a balanced diet, 50-60% of total calories should come from carbohydrates.
- Energy Function: They provide energy to the brain.
- Nutritional Needs: They provide 3.75 kcal per kg of body weight (300g per day).
- Food Sources: Cereals, legumes, fruits, and manufactured products (soft buns).