Children's Nutrition Core Tutorial Book

The core of children's nutrition has never been about copying Internet celebrity recipes, hoarding expensive supplements, and missing the number of grams in meal preparation. Match the growth and development needs of different age groups, respect individual differences, and prioritize the development of long-term eating habits without anxiety. , all operations that depart from these three points are essentially useless efforts, and may even negatively affect the growth and development of the child.

To be honest, I just received a consultation last week. My mother restricted my 3-year-old baby's daily salt intake to 1.2g, broccoli to 100g, and milk to 280ml. As a result, the baby cries when he sees green things. He feels like he is being tortured when eating. He has not gained a pound in half a year. She also asked me with the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents, why is it useless if I follow the standards?

Some people will definitely ask, are the official dietary guidelines wrong? Here we have to talk about the two mainstream directions in the industry: the "unified guideline school" in the field of public health and the "individual adaptation school" in the direction of functional medicine. No one is right or wrong, but the applicable scenarios are different. The former is like the passing line for an exam and is a general reference for the vast majority of healthy children. It is suitable for parents who have no knowledge about nutrition to get started quickly. ； The latter is more like one-to-one tutoring. For special children with allergies, premature birth, weak intestinal function, and genetic metabolic problems, the diet structure must be adjusted accordingly. For example, for children with lactose intolerance, if you insist on filling 300ml of pure milk according to the guidelines, it will only make the diarrhea worse and the nutrients will not be retained at all.

Regarding supplements, the industry has been arguing for almost ten years, and there is still no absolutely unified conclusion. Some pediatricians insist that as long as the child has enough milk and is active outdoors for more than 2 hours a day, there is no need to supplement vitamin D or DHA. ； Some experts say that children now generally stay indoors for a long time, and ultraviolet rays are weak in winter in the north, so a daily supplement of 400IU vitamin D is urgently needed. ； Some nutritionists say that as long as you eat palm-sized deep-sea fish twice a week, DHA is completely enough, and supplements are taxed by IQ. My general advice to parents is to look at their own family situation: If the baby runs around outside every day and gets tanned, and the amount of milk he can drink is more than 400ml, it’s totally fine if he doesn’t supplement. ； If the windows are rarely opened in the winter and the child is allergic to seafood, there is nothing wrong with supplementing algae oil DHA and vitamin D from regular manufacturers. There is no need to worry about "whether it is necessary".

I usually give classes to community parents and never ask them to memorize any nutrient ratio table. It’s so anti-human. Let me teach you the "three-color plate lazy method": half of the plate at each meal is filled with dark-colored ingredients, including green spinach, red tomatoes, and yellow pumpkins. One-quarter is filled with staple food, mixed with multigrain white rice and white noodles, and the remaining quarter is filled with protein. You can change eggs, chicken, fish, shrimp, and tofu at will. As long as you make up for these three categories, the basic nutrition will not be much different. A mother told me before that her baby refused to eat vegetables. I gave her a trick: smash the spinach into the egg pancake and cut the carrots into the shape of a star mold. There is no need to chase after feeding, the baby will eat it by himself, so there is no need for any advanced theory.

Many parents are particularly superstitious about "superfoods". They say blueberries protect eyes, walnuts nourish the brain, and quinoa is the king of grains, and they can't wait to feed their babies every meal. I met a grandma two years ago who fed her 4-year-old grandson three eggs and half a pound of walnuts every day, saying that it was nutritious and good for the brain. As a result, the baby was constipated for half a month, and his cholesterol was higher than that of an adult. Really, there is no food that can make you grow smarter if you eat it. If you feed your child delicacies from the mountains and seas every day, it will be useless if he cannot absorb them. Instead, it is better to have a simple meal and absorb them happily while eating.

I have been doing popular science on children's nutrition for almost 8 years, and my biggest feeling is that 90% of children's nutrition problems are not caused by food, but caused by parents' anxiety. The atmosphere is tense when your whole family eats. They chase each other every day to feed you and weigh you on the scale. Your child associates eating with "being scolded if you fail to complete the task." No matter how good the nutrition is, he will not be able to absorb it. There is really no need to focus on the height and weight of other people's babies. As long as your baby's growth curve keeps fluctuating within the normal range of the WHO child growth standards, it is usually energetic and less sick, and it is no big deal to eat fried chicken, fries and drink a Coke occasionally - after all, happiness is one of the core nutrients for children's growth.