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Begin at the Beginning: The Best Diet for Healthy Children
There is an increasing recognition that only by preventing the occurrence of disease can one hope to achieve a significant improvement in the Nation's health. Preventive health care in childhood will promote the development of children to their fullest potential . . . reducing disability and dependency from illness.
From Nutritional Disorders of Children, prepared by Dr. S. J. Foman M. D., Professor of pediatrics, University of Iowa. U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, No. (HSA) 77-5104.
Diet websites and books are usually concerned with helping those who have become
overweight or unhealthy return to a normal weight and health; to undo the damage caused by previous
faulty dietary practice. But it must be self-evident that it is far better not
to become overweight or unhealthy in the first place. And this relies on correct nutrition
from the start: that is from a child's conception, for our nutritional status
at our beginning has a profound effect on our health throughout life.
During
the time the unborn child is forming, it requires an adequate supply of the
right nutrients. If these are not supplied in the right quantity and at the
right time, a damaged baby is the inevitable result.
Part 1: Prepare for pregnancy
Today, most of us in the West have access to, and can
afford, almost any food
we choose. Yet most of us seem to choose a diet composed of highly refined and
concentrated starches and sugars. We can see all too often the harm that the
predilection for these concentrated, refined carbohydrate foods can do to us as
adults. But, for our offspring, such dietary practice may spell disaster.
In her book,
Let's Have Healthy Children
, the world-renowned nutritionist,
Adele Davies, tells how, when pregnant and nursing mothers ate a proper diet,
not only did they have more normal pregnancies and easier labours, their babies
were born with no congenital abnormalities. Davies also found that children of
well-nourished mothers, who were themselves well-nourished, suffered no colic,
were more intelligent, more attentive, and less prone to hyperactivity,
allergies, colds and other ailments. In other words, not only did good
nutrition promote health in mother and child, it removed most if not all of the
stresses of bringing up children: it made bringing up children a time of joy.
This has been confirmed in studies many times. In a
study from Denmark, for
example, children who weighed less than 2.3 kg (5 lbs) at birth found social
interactions difficult, had poor sight/hand co-ordination, had lower
intelligence quotients (IQs), had impaired sight, were under height and weight
for their age, were more likely to be handicapped and more likely to need
remedial or special education. Other more serious conditions such as cerebral
palsy, blindness, deafness and autism are also linked to poor diet and low
birth-weight. And birth-weight has been shown to be a strong predictor of how
long the child will live and how many illnesses it will suffer.
Birth-weight is directly dependent on what and how
much the expectant mother
eats.
A study of the relationship of diet towards the end of
the first three months
of pregnancy and subsequent birth-weights found that mothers of premature or
low birth-weight babies were consuming a diet significantly lower in some
essential nutrients than mothers of larger babies. The missing or deficient
nutrients associated with in premature births were salt, magnesium, phosphorus
and iron; those associated with low birth-weight were thiamine (vitamin B1),
salt, iron and magnesium, niacin and riboflavin (Vitamin B2). Yet these are all
abundant in meat and other high-protein foods. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the worst cases were always found in children born to mothers who were
either eating vegetarian diets or on slimming diets while they were pregnant.
There has also been a growing body of research that
demonstrates that high levels of insulin in a mother's bloodstream have a
fattening effect in her unborn baby. This is caused by leakage of
insulin-antibody pairs across the placenta. Obese persons almost always exhibit
high insulin levels.
This article does not pretend to be the definitive book on paediatric diet
and nutrition but if its principles are followed from before conception, many
of the trials and tribulations of infancy and of health in later life, as well
as obesity, can be avoided.
Diet for pregnancy
It is as well to prepare in advance for children. It is too late to think about
nutrition only after pregnancy has been diagnosed. A healthy child is dependent
in the first place on being the product of a healthy egg and a healthy sperm.
Difficulty in conceiving is often the result of poor
nutrition. Overweight
women and those on low-calorie diets who seem unable to conceive will find that
the unrestricted-calorie diet advocated here, high in meat, fish and dairy
produce, with fresh vegetables and fruit, and free from refined sugar and
starch will frequently solve their problem.
Note also that it is equally important that the father
has good nutritional
status prior to conception.
Once pregnancy has been determined, the expectant
mother will be subjected to
all sorts of strong pressures: the forces of commercial interests; of folklore;
and, on occasion, nutritional ignorance within the medical profession. These
can have a seriously detrimental effect on her health and that of her child.
What an expectant mother feels like eating is usually a
good guide to what her
body is telling her it needs. But if she has a sweet tooth, she must be very
wary. Her unborn baby receives its nourishment from her. Eating a largely
sugary, starchy diet will displace the proteins and other nutrients that her
baby needs to make body tissue and the fats she needs for proper brain
development.
If you have already produced one apparently healthy
child without paying
particular attention to your diet, beware. You may have a number of subtle
deficiencies, particularly of iron and calcium caused by that first pregnancy.
If these losses are not remedied before conception of the second child, this
child may not be so lucky.
Before conception
In animal breeding, improving the stock and making sure that young animals are
born healthy always includes ensuring a high-quality diet. It is ironic that
'family planning' as practised in Western countries is concerned entirely with
contraception. Little thought is given to improving the diet, of both partners,
particularly before pregnancy. Yet the health of both prospective parents
before conception is at least as important in humans as it is in other animals.
Pregnancy, and a proper diet for it, should always be
planned. You may not
realise that you are pregnant until after you have missed a period. By the time
you are sure, your foetus could have been developing for four to eight weeks.
It is during these first weeks that all your baby's internal organs, limbs and
face begin to develop. Damage at this sensitive time through unsuitable diet,
smoking or drugs contributes to many malformations such as cleft palate,
malformed limbs, and defects to eyes, hearing, heart or brain. Therefore, you
should eat the right things, stop smoking and limit your intake of alcohol,
some weeks before you become pregnant.
Obesity makes delivery more difficult for the mother
and increases the risks
for her baby. Obese women have more high blood pressure, gestational diabetes,
caesarean deliveries and caesarean wound infections. Babies born to obese
women are twice as likely to need intensive care. But, as rapid weight-loss
dieting is very harmful during pregnancy, excess weight should be lost before
conception.
What you eat immediately before and during pregnancy
will also affect the amount of fat your baby will carry through life.
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