Nutritional Practices In Early Child Development

Good nutrition is vital for healthy growth and development for young children. Good nutritional practices early on in life has been proven effective in children as a way of developing healthy dietary routine while addressing their ongoing nutritional needs. It’s important to start and keep healthy routines and maintain good nutritional practices as your child grows. This can be accomplished by, providing three meals and several planned healthy snacks each day, choosing foods from all five food groups, and drinking plenty of water daily.

3 Effective Nutritional Practices

1. Providing Three Meals and several healthy snacks throughout the day.

Infants and Toddlers have smaller stomachs hence they eat smaller amounts of food more often. Providing them with three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner accompanied by healthy snacks in between  may help in keeping them full longer in a healthy way. 

For children's nutritional requirements to be met in a way that is appropriate for their age and developmental needs, a well-balanced diet should be provided.

Fun Fact: Snacks help young children get the additional nutrition they need while preventing them from feeling hungry in between meals.

2. Choose Foods from all five food groups

The importance of providing young children a variety of foods from the five food groups gives them a whole range of nutrients. This enables a well-balanced diet necessary to reduce the risk of illnesses and malnutrition.

 Each food group has different nutrients that serve the body in different ways enabling it to carry out its functions correctly. 

For instance: Calcium helps build strong bones and teeth, lack of a calcium-rich diet may lead to Rickets which causes deformity because of weak bones.

3. Drink Plenty Water!

Undoubtedly, water has many benefits, especially for young children. It helps with blood circulation allowing the blood to carry the oxygen to all the cells in the body easily. Additionally, hydration is necessary for keeping children’s body temperature regulated. Water helps with digestion as it is necessary to help the digestive system break down food and absorb nutrients.

 Another benefit for young children drinking water daily helps in supporting the immune system as it depends on the regular intake of water to rid the body of waste by flushing out toxins.