The importance of Nutritional variation for toddlers and the Introduction of food to infants.

Good morning.

I wanted to speak to you all about the importance of

nutritional variation for toddlers and the introduction of food to infants.

The first thing I want to talk about is

food variety.

Why food variation is important for young Children is because having Children

eat a variety of foods when they are young is very important because

their taste buds are still developing and it will make them more

likely to try new foods and to like them when they're older,

avoiding junk food at a young age allows toddlers to like healthy foods rather than

just have them taste the sugary drunk few drunk foods and get hooked on them.

The next

aspect of this is health,

healthy foods and health benefits.

Some of the things that come along with eating healthy are

avoiding obesity, having more energy on a daily basis,

better heart health,

better moods which who wouldn't want that

good gut health and improves sleep.

Some of the tips and tricks to doing these things are

mixing up the food that you eat on a weekly basis

for young parents is

letting the child choose a new fruit or veggie that they want to have a dinner.

It is also important to add new or different ingredients to sandwiches and salads.

Make sure they have a lot of grains

have fruit with everything. It's a great choice.

And another thing that

we tend to see is parents try and hide the fruits and vegetables

from their Children and that's not always the best thing.

So you want to make sure you keep them visible

and the next thing is to be creative with presentation

as you see in these images.

Um

this mom made a little dragon fly with the goldfish and the grapes,

like who wouldn't want to eat that?

I definitely would be attracted towards that right now.

Um one of the things that my mom did when I was little is she put like

showing this picture of celery with peanut butter and little chocolate chips.

I love chocolate chips, so I was more likely to eat it.

Some other great tips are to find um

fruits and vegetables with textures that your Children like

for example, I really enjoy like crunchy thing.

So I tend to eat bell peppers as a snack instead of chips

as we move on to the next topic. It's about food introduction.

Food, introduction for infants has a couple different

sanctions to it.

If the baby is breast fed and in the weaning process,

it is very important to watch the baby's response to food

to the foods that you're eating and its

actions introducing textures is also equally important.

Some tips from preparing food for infants that are in the weaning

process is to cook food until it's soft and then mash it.

Um

to cut other foods into small pieces and thin slices,

Mix cereals and

mash grains with breast milk

and then mash or puree fruits and veggies

when weaning some things to look at, to know if your baby is ready or not.

The weaning process should not begin before the six month mark of breastfeeding.

How to know if the infant is ready.

They make a chewing motion with their mouth, they grab for food.

If there's lots of drooling, grabbing objects, putting objects in their mouth.

If the baby is able to sit up alone or with support,

is it able to control its head and neck?

Does it open its mouth when

food is offered to them?

Does the baby or infant swallow food rather than push it out onto their chin?

Like you see lots of times when

infants have the food all over their faces,

do they bring objects to their mouth? Try to grasp small objects such as toys or food?

Do they transfer the food to the back of the tongue and

swallow it rather than letting it spew all over their chin.

Some examples for the weaning process. Um

For weeks one and 2

you want to keep the breast milk as the main component.

So for the first feed you want it to be breast milk.

But the second feed, you want breast milk with cereal and puree,

it's a great way

to start to incorporate other foods.

And then for the rest of the feeds, you want to have breast milk

As you move towards week three.

The 2nd and 3rd feed,

you can try and incorporate cereal puree and some fruit and vegetable purees.

Now some babies may be a little bit different but that's

the most generic way to start.

Another important aspect of weaning goes to my next topic

and that is about mealtime environment.

Um we may not think that this is an important thing,

but making sure that you're showing your Children and

young infants healthy eating habits is extremely important.

You want to make sure that you introduce a variety of food textures

and you want to be sure to introduce the right foods at the right time.

Now this may seem silly, but whenever you're eating

at a table, your infant is watching you

eat and watching your actions how you react to certain foods. So

an example would be, if you leave your veggies on your plate,

they'll see that and say, oh

mommy and daddy didn't eat this. Like

I don't want to try that.

Um

you want to make sure that it's a healthy happy environment where

it's welcome to try different foods. Not too like foods, but

just making sure that it's

happy and comfortable is the most important.

Another thing that

parents tend to worry about is food allergies.

one of the most common ones is peanut butter, but

but when introducing new foods, it can be intimidating.

But one of the first things parents thing to check is their Children's risk factors,

peanut products should not be the first solid food that the baby eats.

The best way to introduce peanut butter is to the infamous to mix it with water first.

Now there are other ways that you can check your

child's risk for certain allergies.

And that is definitely something that if you're concerned,

you should speak with your doctor about

when reflecting on all these topics that we talked about.

It is important to remember that

doing these things sets up Children for

a healthier future and a healthier lifestyle

and by doing these things, it also allows changes to be made in school meal programs.

Imagine how healthy

the meal programs at school would be

if

so many different Children actually enjoy eating fruits and vegetables.

It's like a ripple effect if one kid shows

all of their friends

how much they enjoy eating the fruits and vegetables or the little snacks

that they made with their mom and dad and how yummy they are.

Those kids will start to like them too.

And by doing this, it makes a big change in the overall health

of the world. It starts with them at a young age and then moving up

through

elementary,

middle and high school and then into college having those healthy eating habits,

It's so important.

We'll be able to reduce the obesity rates

and increase the overall health.

one question that I want to leave you all with is

do you think that parents forcing their Children

to eat fruits and veggies is actually helpful?

Think about it and I would like to hear your guys responses in my opinion,

I wish that my parents would have pushed me to

eat more fruits and veggies when I was younger.

It definitely,

I feel like would have made it easier for me to eat them now.

I hope you all enjoyed this presentation, and

I would love to hear any questions that you might have. Thank you.

The importance of Nutritional variation for toddlers and the Introduction of food to infants.

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