Why fast foods are harmful for children. Baby and fast food: how to wean your baby from junk food? A problem for the digestive system
Very often we see kids on the streets chewing croutons, chips, chocolates, or various fast foods (pizza, hamburgers, fries). Parents most often only rejoice in the baby's good appetite, but the result of such nutrition will be gastritis, pancreatitis and initial stage obesity at the age of 4-5 years. Children prefer this junk food more than healthy fruits, vegetables and cereals. The thing is that children like everything bright and unusual, using this, manufacturers lure kids with bright packaging, gifts inside, drawings of their favorite characters. Advertising with the help of your favorite characters and bright colors invites you to taste this “forbidden fruit” seductive for a child. All these products include flavor enhancers, flavorings, and colorants. But eating fast food is the main cause of obesity. With its taste, look and aromas, fast food simply hypnotizes the immature children's mind. The flavor enhancers that are actively added to fast food and convenience foods have an effect similar to the narcotic and they act directly on the human brain.
All regular food it seems to the child already tasteless and he begins to be capricious in order to get the coveted slice of pizza, chips or a chocolate bar. Most often, parents follow the child's lead, especially if the child is thin and does not eat well (“Let it eat at least than nothing at all”). As a result, the vicious circle is closed - the child refuses to eat homemade products, and the family switches to improper nutrition.
Fast food is also tempting because it is inexpensive and affordable. You can buy fast food in any tent, they look attractive, and even adults often cannot resist such food. Adults also eat all these bright products, and do not notice that they are harmful, because everything negative is not so strongly manifested in the body of adults. To eliminate the negative effects of such food, adults have a reserve. And in people who have health problems and in children, the use of such food leads to enough serious illnesses. Special institutes are engaged in the development of a rational nutrition system for a child. Baby food affects growth, metabolism, immunity, physical and mental development little child... Fast food manufacturers are promoting their products to the market because they are interested in making a profit. Sellers have little interest in the health of small consumers of their products, because they are not responsible for unhealthy food, unless there have been serious proven cases of poisoning. Gradual, slow and long-term harm to health is very difficult to prove, and manufacturers of these products take advantage of all this.
Chocolate can do a lot of harm to children under the age of three and can cause allergies. Inexpensive chocolate contains many different additives that are harmful to young children. The components included in the composition of chocolate have a negative effect on the digestive organs, stimulate nervous system and disrupt normal sleep patterns, cause tooth decay. Nut, fruit and other additives are prohibited in the diet of young children, as they are poorly digested and can cause abdominal pain of a different nature. And many chocolates contain such additives. If you give your baby a chocolate, then only high-quality, without additives and no more than two wedges a day.
According to the rules proper nutrition you can eat sweets only after meals, and serve them with tea. It is generally better not to use sucking candies for children, as they stick to their teeth. The lollipops are difficult to clean then not only with saliva, but also with a brush. As a result, acidity in the mouth is disturbed and early caries develops. Babies who eat a lot of sweets can be left without milk teeth by 4-5 years.
It would seem that solving the problem is simple: you should not buy hamburgers and chips for your child, but only give a child the right food... But parents often offer their child homemade fast food. Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, dumplings with mayonnaise - children love these classic dishes, but such food does not add health. However, looking at how mom and dad drink coffee with cookies for breakfast, eat dumplings for lunch, pizza for dinner, and chips with beer in the evening, the child is unlikely to want to believe that all this is harmful.
Food culture must be brought up at home. Simple notations and lengthy explanations will not be helpful. Young children will not understand this, and those who are older will rebel out of a sense of contradiction. The problem is that adults themselves are not clear on how to transition to a healthy diet. You need to start with the cooking process. Cook slowly, at a slow pace, using a typical set of products, prepare dishes with a "multi-layered" recipe, a large number of ingredients. Eat with pleasure, and also slowly. It turns out healthy, tasty, but, of course, not cheap. But thanks to these principles, you will educate a thoughtful eater.
Cook at home
Imagine a hamburger. Everyone knows that this is an appetizing bun with a thin cutlet and a leaf of greenery. The child sees all this, plus he sees a beautiful package and a toy (which is given as a gift). Dishes from useful menu look very different in the eyes of a child. He sees borscht as a mixture of vegetables, an omelet in his eyes is a whipped mass with a characteristic smell, oatmeal similar to paste. Most often, the child refuses to even try such dishes. Nutritionists of the Soviet era recommended disguising unloved and unfamiliar foods as familiar foods. For example, a little broccoli was added to mashed potatoes, and cutlets were made from carrots. You can not just put a plate of food in front of your child, but tell what he eats, how and from what this dish is prepared.
Today it has become fashionable to satisfy the gastronomic curiosity of a child. The child needs to be carried away by the process of cooking, so that the lesson becomes like a game. Basically master classes for children, they start with a demonstration of baking, since the child can be carried away, he has the opportunity to mold something from the dough, and baked goods are easier to prepare. The child is directly involved in the preparation of food, and he is ready to eat it, even if it turned out not the most best result... The final point of the class is table setting according to all the rules and using all tableware (knives and forks). This special atmosphere lends its charm even to stews and traditional apple pie. You can start a culinary event by shopping for groceries at a grocery store or vegetable market. When buying groceries, explain to your child that vegetables are different, potatoes are different, potatoes are better bought not frozen, and so on. Next, prepare the child to start participating in the cooking processes of those dishes, which are accompanied by a detailed explanation. The culmination of the class will be a lunch of three beautifully presented dishes. It takes a lot of time to prepare dinner in this way, so it's best to devote the weekend to this process. In addition, this useful activity replaces going to the cinema with popcorn or visiting a bistro. All such establishments can occasionally be visited so that beautiful, but junk food does not become a "forbidden fruit", but this should be an ordinary everyday event. And a trip to a restaurant of high culinary art should be carried out as a holiday, observing all the necessary ceremonies.
How can you make your child love healthy food?
Often parents are faced with the fact that a child asks to fish boiled onions or carrots from the soup, does not eat thick in borscht and throws a tantrum at the mere mention of a vegetable stew. But for a growing organism to grow and develop, it just needs vegetables! You need to start teaching your child to healthy food when you have already transferred the baby from breastfeeding to a varied diet. Pediatricians advise starting complementary foods with vegetable purees and liquid cereals. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that mashed potatoes should be vegetable, not fruit. The thing is that fruits, as a rule, are all sweet, and a child, having tried them, may not want to eat vegetables, because they may not seem tasty to him. In addition, fruits are more likely to cause diathesis or indigestion. First attempts to feed your toddler with cauliflower or zucchini puree can be unsuccessful. If the mother becomes discouraged because the child does not eat vegetables at all, she replaces them with fruits, cereals and potatoes. Most babies eat these foods willingly.
A child under the age of two can be outsmarted a little by adding boiled and chopped vegetables to the porridge. With older children, this is already more difficult. The hardest way is to turn food into toys. Mothers cut penguins out of carrots, make beads from peas, boats from cucumbers, and a kitten from radishes. But child psychologists do not recommend using this approach, since the child will soon treat such modified foods as toys and will not want to eat them. The creative approach to products can be applied in a slightly different way. Children like bright colors, so you can serve food in colorful plates and put some potato slices ( yellow), two slices of tomatoes (red), finely chopped green onions. The plate with food will turn out smart, cheerful and will quickly interest the child. It is better to serve vegetables to the child separately and whole. This is how they serve thoroughly washed cucumbers, tomatoes, dill, green onions, lettuce, cabbage leaves. The child should be shown that these vegetables can be seasoned with salt or pepper if desired, and explained that vegetables can be eaten with a slice of bread. Crispy root vegetables and vegetables (cucumbers, carrots, celery stalks, radishes) can be cut into small sticks and served with the sauce separately. Vegetable sticks can be dipped in the sauce, the child should like this idea.
To fill the children's diet with vegetables, you can prepare soups - mashed potatoes and "smoothies" (thick aromatic drink). The vegetable soup you make for the whole family can be turned into a puree soup. If a child does not like pieces of vegetables floating in the soup, mashed soup will be an excellent solution to this problem. The most important thing for adults to do is eat vegetables themselves. Children repeat everything after adults, so the personal example of mom and dad is the most reliable way by which all family members can be taught healthy eating and healthy way life.
Although the history of fast food establishments began in the 1920s in the United States, what we now call junk food appeared much earlier. Carbonated drinks began to be produced at the end of the 18th century in Switzerland. In those days, they were considered not only useful, but also curative. A hot dog with a bun (hot dog) was first sold in 1867 in New York. Availability, speed of service, intense flavor, low price and thoughtful marketing strategies have made this food increasingly popular around the world, especially among children and adolescents.
The existing industrial methods of obtaining processing, storage and preparation of food negate its nutritional and biological value. Junk food is high in fat, sugar and salt at the same time, as well as almost complete lack of vitamins and minerals. Some of the ingredients in these products are reminiscent of a chemistry textbook or pharmacological reference book.
And what fast food restaurants offer: burgers, fries, nuggets, fried pies and, in fact, food junk like chips, crackers, sweet soda, chocolates, gum and sweets, and instant food fast food (soups, mashed potatoes, noodles), and most deeply processed products from the "open, heat and eat" series - contain a maximum of saturated fat and trans fatty acids, sugar, salt, additives, colors and preservatives. Fiber, vitamins and trace elements in such food are difficult to find. This makes it an unsuitable choice for a growing and developing person.
Let's figure it out!
Not all yoghurts are equally healthy, just as not all pizza is harmful and obese. To understand what is good and what is bad in the world of food, it is enough to carefully read the labels. It seems that products specially designed for children and adolescents should by definition be healthy and wholesome.
We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The most common choice now is dry breakfast for children. The ingredients on the box are listed in descending order, from high to low. So, sugar is in second place. And there is also glucose and glucose syrup, which is essentially the same sugar. 100 g of various breakfast cereals contain from 30 to 38 g of sugar (referred to in the annotation as "simple sugars"). So not only is this food not a healthy choice, but it immediately falls into the junk food category.
The appeal of fast food and junk food is largely due to its availability and cheapness. This is achieved by using inexpensive ingredients such as margarine. Vegetable and fish fats are partially hydrogenated by adding hydrogen through complex chemical reactions to increase shelf life and harden them. This leads to the formation of trans fatty acids, which increase the risk of obesity and heart disease. In some countries, such as Norway, the use of such fats is prohibited by law. Trans fats are not just margarines and what fries are fried in fast foods. Approximately 40% of the products sold in supermarkets contain trans fatty acids. Read labels carefully, dear parents. Replace as soon as you see "partially hydrogenated vegetable fat".
A frequent choice for snacks is chips and crackers. A 150-gram package of chips contains the daily amount of salt, provides a third of all calories and 20 g saturated fat (with the recommended level for children aged 11-14 years less than 25-28 grams per day). I counted twenty different ingredients in the croutons! They were written like this small printthat I had to strain my eyes. Can a product be considered food if its numerous components can be read only with a magnifying glass?
A nightmare in your own kitchen
You don't have to go to a horror movie to get scared. You can do this in your own kitchen in the company of products from a nearby supermarket. Let's continue reading the labels. There are two tablespoons of sugar in one serving of sweet soda (300 ml)! It is clear that such a drink cannot quench your thirst. A lot of sugar is not only caries, but also potential obesity, and an increased load on the pancreas, which must quickly process it. The shock doses of sugar added to industrial foods alter the perception of conventional foods. They will seem too bland, savory, tasteless.
Too much energy in a small amount is not only about excess sugar, it's a problem with all fast food. This food practically does not need to be chewed. A child can eat almost a day's portion of his allotted calories in one sitting and not even feel that he is full. Especially if he eats in front of the TV or on the go.
Let's count the calories
To complete my story about what fast food consists of, I took up a calculator: nothing is more convincing than numbers and facts. Just 400 g of fast food (a double cheeseburger and a serving of breaded chicken wings) contains at least half the daily calories for the average teenager, table salt in 2.5 days, more cholesterol and saturated fat than necessary, and no vitamins at all. If we add a carbonated drink and a portion of ice cream to this, all the numbers will start to go off-scale, and vitamins will not be added.
Please do not need to convince children that this is not tasty. Just because it tastes good, this food doesn't get any less harmful. Let us explain and set an example, not prohibit and take away. Never reward or reward fast food for good behavior. Try to be aware of what your kids eat outside the home. Do not prohibit totally, but do not encourage fast food either. Teach children to cook on their own and understand food, because being able to cook is fashionable, fun and interesting. And, perhaps, one day your child will say: "THIS I do not eat."
We all know that fast food negatively affects our health. Especially it concerns children, whose body is not yet fully formed. For kids, fast food is doubly harmful. But how to convince a child that such food is unsafe for him?
Today we will try to figure it out.
First of all, it is necessary to identify the reasons why the child prefers fast food.
Fast food is a psychological problem.
Today, fast food has become a kind of lifestyle for many. Many consider this to be trendy, as fast food ads can be seen everywhere. For a teenager, going to a fast food establishment is a real entertainment, a pastime that is different from everyday life. Moreover, all of him go there friends... If a child attends fast food is very harmful, then you should not worry.
But if your child attends such institutions only because he does not want to be different from his peers, which means that he has psychological problems.
Explain to your baby that being good to absolutely everyone is simply impossible. This attitude towards fast food is a serious problem. And you may have to use the services of a psychologist to solve it.
If fast food is a place for your child to hang out with friends, you need to come up with an alternative. For example, going to the cinema, to the billiard club, and so on.
You can tell your child about harm such food. Find a movie that gives examples of the negative effects of fast food on the human body. Show by example how healthy eating helps people achieve their goals.
Healthy alternatives to fast food.
Go with your child to the nearest fast food and order the most harmful food... This can be rice, salad, and anything from meat. Ask your child to continue ordering things that are not so harmful. However, this does not solve the main problem.
If a child attends fast food not only with friends, but also himself, and also tries to drag his parents there, it means that he has become addicted to flavorsthat are present in fast food. Try to explain this to your baby. Explain that flavors are needed to enhance the taste of foods, which is why you really want to eat them instead of healthy, but not so tasty foods.
Let the child practice willpower... For example, 7 days without a quick meal, and he gets a gift. Another week without junk food - an interesting journey and so on. Over time, the child will simply forget about fast food.
Maybe fast food for a kid is holidaywho is never at home. Then mom will have to take care of it. You can bake an unusual cake or make beautiful figures, flowers and much more from vegetables. The main thing is to involve the child in this. Make a fruit drink from fresh berries or ice cream. Let the kid invite his friends to enjoy such goodies. Believe me, soon your child will forget about fast food.
Fast food is a form of protest.
It happens that a child eats a quick meal just to demonstrate his independencethat he is already an adult. In this case, the parents are to blame. Maybe when you ate your hamburger, you said that this food is for adults only? Then the kid goes to fast food to show that no one influences him, he is on his own.
Shouts and prohibitions will not help in this situation. First of all yourself parents should refuse junk food. Personal example will work much better than any conversation.
How to influence a child?
1. You can put brochures in the most prominent places in the apartment that tell about the dangers of fast food.
2. Watch a movie with your child about healthy eating.
3. Show pictures of fat people, tell us about how they suffer from excess weighthow many diseases appear if a person does not monitor his diet and body weight.
4. You can sign up with your child for aerobics, fitness.
5. Do not store crackers, cookies, chips at home. Fill the refrigerator with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Yesterday we discussed the main claims associated with the consumption of fast food products. But we did not have time to talk about all the disadvantages of this diet, of which there are a lot. Let's continue our discussion of this issue. First of all, these problems include an excess of light carbohydrates (sugars) in dishes. In general, many of the sugary foods sold on fast food chains, and especially beverages, will contain higher amounts of sugar and many other mono and disaccharides. Preschoolers should receive no more than 35 g of sugar per day, and older children, older preschoolers and schoolchildren - up to 45 g. A portion of many of the drinks in fast food restaurants contain 42 g of sugar. And therefore, such sugary drinks are incompatible with your child's healthy diet. In addition, carbonated drinks and even carbonated mineral water can irritate the mucous membranes of the digestive organs. The habits of drinking cold carbonated drinks down fast food leads to dilution of gastric juice and even worse digestion of food.
Fast food is high in saturated fat. Most of Fast food is high in fat, which is usually considered saturated. They contain special fatty acids, animal fat, which can be included both in the products themselves (cutlets for burgers), and in the composition of deep-fried fats, which are used to fry many products - these are fries, nuggets. An excess of saturated fats in the form of fatty acids in food products, which often appear on our table, leads to an increase in the incidence rate of the population with various pathologies provoked by atherosclerosis, as well as the pathologies of the vessels and heart associated with it.
Application of special, hydrogenated fats in food preparation. Most fast food enterprises use special margarines and specific mixtures of solid edible fats, including those that have been hydrogenated, in their preparation. Moreover, these fats contain high level trans isomers of fatty acids. Such products have an extremely negative effect on human health. So, the presence of trans isomers in the usual diet will several times, very significantly increase the risk of the formation of pathologies of the heart and blood vessels, as well as other diseases, including oncological profile. In many foreign countries, many of these food companies can take steps to replace the oils and fats used with less harmful ones. However, for Russia, such measures are not gaining popularity, everything is done to reduce the cost of production.
This food lacks micronutriens and dietary fiber. Most of the traditional fast food dishes are prepared using special, so-called refined foods that are low in dietary fiber - fiber. Due to a diet poor in dietary fiber, risk factors for diseases of the digestive organs are formed, including an oncological profile in the form of colon cancer. From the traditional assortment of dishes offered by fast foods, as a rule, it is difficult to compose a complete diet, they are not rich in micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, useful acids). In this regard, it is worth noting positive trends in the inclusion of various kinds of salads in the assortment of many of their fast food enterprises. Many of them also have specially prepared meals for children on the menu, such as apple slices or carrot sticks. The expansion of the range of such industries due to the sale of natural fruit juice is also favorably manifested.
Fast food products are high in carcinogens. According to the research results, those cooking methods that are applicable in the production of many fast food dishes can lead to an increase in the content of carcinogens in food - substances that determine the increased risks of oncological pathology. These substances are formed when exposed high temperatures in the form of products of special oxidation (crisp crusts, fries are carcinogens).
Inclusion of special food additives for the production of people and culinary products. Many of the dishes, especially drinks that are sold through fast food enterprises, contain various kinds of food additives in the form of leavening agents, dyes, stabilizers, flavorings, preservatives, phosphates, and antioxidants. Technological food additives of this kind in the amounts used do not pose a danger to the life and health of adults, and they are widely used in the production of a wide variety of products. But in the nutrition of children, especially if they are preschoolers, it is necessary to limit the use of any kind of food additives, and it is worth giving preference only to the so-called natural dishes and healthy food. Particular danger to children early age lies in phosphoric acids and their salts, which contain meat dishes and carbonated drinks. With their systematic use, especially against the background of a calcium deficiency in the diet, they can lead to serious disorders of calcium metabolism in the body. As a result, diseases of the musculoskeletal system are formed. Along with this, the various acids included in the drinks will increased factors risk for the formation of dental caries.
Fast food contains substances that stimulate the appetite. Naturally, information about the use of various kinds of additives by fast food manufacturers that are addictive to this type of food is a myth that arises as a result of the unfairness of competitors. However, the manufacturers of these products do not hide the fact that they use different kinds of flavorings. For example, fries contain beef-flavored additives. The theoretical harm from flavors is less than from the use of technological food additives, flavors are usually used much less. However, the flavors used actively stimulate the consumer's appetite, which consequently leads to systematic overeating and the formation of obesity. The opinion of scientists who study the effect of fast food on the human body suggests that excessive consumption of fats from this food and sugar leads to the formation of a certain addiction, which is akin to narcotic.
As recommended to choose fast food food for children.
Naturally, the more often you consume junk food, the higher the risk of developing unwanted changes in the body. Health problems threaten those who regularly consume fast food. Naturally, any doctor will say that the child is not recommended to eat in fast food. If it is impossible to refuse visiting such places, it is important to approach the most rational choice of more correct dishes. The assortment of fast foods includes dishes of different nutritional value both relatively favorable and unfavorable composition. The systematic consumption of fast food for children is prohibited preschool age children with health problems, especially the pathology of the digestive system, who are overweight, should refrain from visiting fast food enterprises. Thus, the dishes traditionally offered by these restaurants for children, like Happy Meals, are far from optimal nutrients in terms of nutritional value.
If you follow the principles healthy eating, parents can choose less harmful ones even from this range of dishes. So, if a child after 5 years of age visits a fast food enterprise every two to four weeks, where he eats baked potatoes with cheese, vegetable salad or a slice of pizza with cheese, a hamburger, such products will not do much harm in this mode of intake. When choosing foods and dishes for preschool children, you should categorically refuse from sweet soda, especially tonic. They contain caffeine, which is very exciting for the child. It is also worth giving up eating foods fried in fat - khash brown, french fries, donut nuggets, fried pies. Also, skip sausage and sausage products such as hot dogs, pizza with sausage or ham.
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