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Supercharge Your Kids
Keep junior smart and svelte, serve them nutritious brain-boosting foods.
By Julia Goh and Mary Lim
Superfoods don’t just build better brains, they help your tot sit still during story time, and still leave energy to spare for an intense game of catching.
As parents, you play a major role in helping your tots cultivate smart eating habits from an early age, especially since dietary habits, once shaped, are difficult to change when your child gets older.
“Instead of instructing him to give it up, explain how replacing it with healthier options will give him, say, stronger teeth and bones, or make him swim as fast as Michael Phelps. It’ll help him better understand the importance of eating healthily.”
Your child usually takes the cue from you, so be conscious about your reaction to healthy foods. If you are picky about food, chances are, she may be copying you! |
Fact: What children eat and how they think, act, and learn is closely linked. Think of the brain as an engine that needs the right fuel to make it run. So the better you feed the brain, the better it works.
Food provides carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals ― nutrients essential for healthy growth and development of all parts of the body, including the brain. Indeed, this all-important organ uses 20 to 25 per cent of the total energy you consume. And since the brain is 60 per cent fat, it’s going to feel it if you don’t eat the right fat, such as omega 3 fats (found in oily fish like salmon).
For years, athletes have eaten to win. Similarly, kids can eat to learn. Nutrition researchers are continuing to find out more about the power certain foods have on growing bodies. These superfoods don’t just build better brains, they help your tot sit still during story time, and still leave energy to spare for an intense game of catching.
Studies by the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London show that babies given a high-protein diet in their first four weeks have higher IQs by the time they reach adolescence. Protein changes the structure of the brain by increasing the size of the caudate nucleus, a region associated with higher intelligence.
EAT SMARTS
Bet you didn’t know that by the time your child is 3 years, he’d have completed 75 per cent of his brain growth. This is why it’s vital to boost your tot’s intellectual and emotional development during these early years. When a child is born, his brain works to connect all his nerve cells every time he is held, read to or plays with a toy.
Besides external stimulation through activities like play and reading, one of the most important ways you can ramp up your little one’s brain function is through a healthy diet, child nutritionists say.
Letty Shiu, a nutritionist who works with youths at the Health Promotion Board, notes, “For example, glucose supplies energy to the brain, while fats provide adequate structural support for the brain. To reap the full benefits of these nutrients, it is important to eat a balanced diet.”
Just as whole grains, colourful veg and oily fish are well-known brain boosters, the biggest brain drains are sugary cereals, juices and drinks with high-fructose corn syrup and white bread.
Eat the wrong foods, and your child could pay the price during his adolescence and beyond. As a child’s nervous system is more delicate, being deficient in essential nutrients may hamper his development, including his ability to concentrate and behave in school, and impact his emotional health. Scientists have also found that a junk food diet causes high cholesterol levels in middle age and leads to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease (a common form of dementia) later in life.
PRIME PICKINGS
If you’re lax about food choices and junior becomes obese from a high-fat, high-sugar diet, it may up his risk of health problems. These include high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and sleep apnoea (breathing difficulty during sleep, which causes him to feel tired and restless in the day). Worse, obesity may lead to poor self-esteem.
Clearly, as parents, you play a major role in helping your tots cultivate smart eating habits from an early age, especially since dietary habits, once shaped, are difficult to change when your child gets older.
If you’re uncertain about how to navigate this food path, use the Healthy Diet Pyramid as a guide and select more items from the base of the pyramid (such as rice and bread) and less towards the top (such as fats and sugar). Make sure your child consumes a variety of foods from across the four groups ― rice and alternatives, fruit, vegetables, and meat and alternatives ― so that he gets sufficient energy and nutrients to grow and develop healthily.
Offer your child with the right foods will help him grow up healthy ― and smart ― but don’t forget to provide your child with plenty of opportunities to play and interact. High energy activities like running, and bonding ones such as reading or hugging, gives your mini dynamo a well-rounded blend of physical, mental and emotional stimulation to help him develop.
HEALTHY CHOICES
Karen Wright, a dietitian at The Food Clinic, notes that one common problem parents face is to get their child to overcome a dislike for certain foods, such as vegetables.
“Some vegetables have a strong taste, so a child will not be able to appreciate them and instinctively push them aside. It is part of a child’s development, as he becomes more aware of the world around him and develops an innate desire for safety,” explains the mother of 11-year-old twin boys.
As for ever-present fast food, it’s fine to have it occasionally, but you can still help your child eat more healthily. Shiu suggests, “Choose salads or fruit instead of set meals with French fries and soft drinks, avoid or reduce the amount of condiments, such as butter and salad dressing. Remove the skin of poultry, and avoid deep-fried items.”
If your mini muncher has developed a taste for high-fat and high-sugar foods such as burgers and biscuits, try and sway him to the right way by putting the message across from a relevant perspective.
Wright advises, “Instead of instructing him to give it up, explain how replacing it with healthier options will give him, say, stronger teeth and bones, or make him swim as fast as Michael Phelps.
“It’ll help him better understand the importance of eating healthily.”
If you have any comments or practical suggestions, write to us at editor@family.sg
- Mother & Baby
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