The Importance of Healthy Early Eating Habits

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The modern science of nutrition and numerous scientific studies indicate that nutrition is one of the most important factors that affect every person's health and quality of life. 

 

The role and importance of proper nutrition are especially pronounced in childhood, the period when children grow and develop most intensively when they are quite physically active and mentally engaged through learning. 

 

Given that proper nutrition is the basis of health for life, its basic and most important task is to provide the child's body with optimal amounts of all nutrients, including normal physical, intellectual, emotional, and social growth and development.

 

How important is a healthy and balanced diet for children?

The connection between proper nutrition, health, and the ability to learn is indisputable. Nutrition is one of the three key factors that influence children's development, along with genes and the immediate environment in which toddlers grow up. 

 

However, consuming certain foods does not guarantee that your child will get better academic success, although some parents advise their little ones to eat as much fish as possible, because omega-3 fatty acids, which fish contains, are responsible for the proper development of the brain and nervous system. On the other hand, research shows that nutrition in early childhood is related to the health of the youngest and their academic achievements later in life.

 

What's for dinner?

Dinner must be light and nutritious, because after consuming it, physical inactivity follows, i.e. sleep, where the demand for energy is reduced. It is best to eat leftovers from lunch or some lighter meal. Cereals are a great option for diner because they are one of the best sources of easily and quickly available energy. Cereals include corn, rice, wheat, barley, rye, and others. For example, you can make a variety of meals from rice, find out what's the healthiest rice with which you can make wonderful and healthy meals.

 

Nutrition and school success

It may sound incredible that what a child eats at the age of four can affect his ability to learn later in life. However, many studies confirm just that. In early childhood, it is important for parents to monitor their toddler's diet for later success in school. Thus, breastfeeding is associated with a higher IQ, while iron deficiency leads to reduced cognitive abilities and achievement at school age. 

 

In addition, due to poor nutrition, children more often go to the doctor, miss classes, and lag behind their peers in terms of knowledge. The research made this correlation even more obvious: students who eat breakfast every morning are not nervous or irritable, they are concentrated and learn and remember better, so their success is almost guaranteed. 

 

Nutrition and health

Regardless of what the term "early childhood" means to parents, this period, at least as far as nutrition is concerned, begins even before the baby is born. Poor nutrition in pregnancy hinders the growth of the fetus and can negatively affect the development of the brain, which leads to permanent chronic diseases. Such a diet of a breastfeeding mother also adversely affects the child's overall development, especially during the first six months of the baby's life, when it is fed exclusively on breast milk. 

 

For that reason, all pregnant women must take care that their diet is healthy and balanced, that is, that it contains a lot of important nutrients that she and the child she is carrying: carbohydrates, proteins, calcium, iron, and vitamins A, C, and D. Although at first glance this list seems too demanding, many expectant mothers actually already consume most of these ingredients - the essence is that their diet is based on the principles of proper nutrition, which is best represented by the food pyramid.