Children of all sizes need healthy diet

Children of all sizes need healthy diet

Melissa Southern-Garcia, Dietitian, Jakarta, southerndietitian@yahoo.com

I receive many questions from readers about problems with overweight children. Childhood obesity is a topic that has received much press lately and has actually reached epidemic proportions in many countries.

Although some parents may still be unaware of the dangers of childhood obesity, it has, for the most part, become common knowledge. There is, however, another side to this story.

Recently a mother commented to me that although her child's eating habits were less than what would be considered "healthy", it was not of concern since the child was not overweight.

"She's thin. She can get away with eating what she wants." We've all probably heard that before, but is it actually true?

As I have said, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the dangers and health consequences of being overweight, but what about the consequences of an unhealthy diet? Is it harmful for a child who is not overweight to follow an unhealthy diet?

A child's stomach is the size of a small fist, yet vitamin, mineral and nutrient needs for growth and development are very high. Meeting all of those needs in such a small stomach is a challenge on any day. The problem becomes even more difficult when those tiny little stomachs are already full of sugary soft drinks and candy.

There is very little room left for food that provides nutrition to grow on. This line of reasoning deals strictly with the ability to fill our child's needs and avoid a deficiency or malnutrition. However, new areas of nutrition research show us that feeding a child a healthy diet may actually have long-term implications that we may not have imagined.

This area of research, called metabolic programming, proposes that from conception through to adolescence the foods a child eats will lead to changes in their genes, hormones, enzymes and multiple other body processes. The basic idea is that during periods of growth there are certain "windows of opportunity" for development.

If nutritional needs are not met -- if something is missing -- developmental outcomes can be permanently altered. The types of changes we refer to are not those typically seen with a vitamin deficiency and are not physical deformities, instead, they are changes within the body's regulatory system which can lead to greater risk for developing certain diseases such as cancer or diabetes.

One of the most easily affected hormones is insulin. Animal studies have shown that a diet high in sugar early on can lead to insulin resistance and subsequent problems with diabetes.

Another study indicated that women who consumed a high fiber diet as teenagers were 20 percent less likely to develop breast cancer as adults. Other studies have shown that adults who consumed high-fat diets as children were more likely to have high cholesterol levels as adults, regardless of their current diets.

So what is a healthy diet, especially when referring to children? Most healthy eating tips for adults are applicable to children as well. These include aiming for at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, replacing saturated fats with healthier fat choices, and eating appropriate portion sizes.

However, there are also certain tips that apply specifically to children. Many children actually don't get enough fat. A healthy diet consists of approximately one-third of all calories coming from fat. When children's diets are full of sugar and carbohydrates, there may be an extra need for fat. It is still important to get fat from healthy sources.

Because of their small stomachs, children often snack. It is important to provide healthy snack alternatives such as fruit, vegetables, milk, yogurt, whole wheat crackers, etc. Remember that a soda contains up to 12 teaspoons of sugar and a small piece of chocolate cake can have 10 teaspoons of sugar. Watching sugar intake is another key element of a healthy diet for children.

Surely there is a great deal more to learn in this field, but when we think about the long-term benefits of a healthy diet in childhood -- preventing obesity, setting life-long healthy eating patterns and avoiding problems with deficiencies and malnutrition -- the concept of metabolic programming is yet one more reason to do our best to feed our children the right way.