Complementary feeding is a wonderful opportunity to teach a child how to eat well. Sadly, however, it seems this opportunity is often a missed one. While breastfeeding has a great impact on childhood health and is strongly encouraged for optimal infant health and development, breast milk is part of a bigger picture … the first 1000 days of life.
Infant and toddler feeding is the foundation of a life long relationship with food, as well as a source of nutrients for healthy growth, development and functioning of the immune system. For their small size, infants and toddlers have relatively high requirements when it comes to nutrition when compared to adults. Contrary to this, small children can only consume small amounts of food due to a small stomach capacity. Even so, studies reveal that nutrient quality is compromised more often than food quantity.
Malnutrition in young children is not limited to underweight or stunting but also presents as micronutrient deficiencies such as iron or calcium. Nutrient density is therefore an important factor to consider when planning and preparing complementary foods.
Obesity is a form of malnutrition and needs to be prevented or treated with the same caution as underweight for age or stunting. Obese infants are likely to be obese later in childhood and adulthood meaning that the risk for obesity associated diseases can be reduced during complementary feeding. A high intake of protein, typically from an excessive milk intake, has been associated with childhood obesity. By age one, an infant should be eating family foods with little supplementation from milk. Milk feeds, as meals, are no longer necessary, especially during the night. Nutrient dense food must come first.
Picky eating can be stressful for a parent or care giver but most importantly, it can compromise nutrition intake. This compromise can affect both childhood and adulthood. Nutrients deficiencies can have a negative effect on both cognitive and motor development in addition to an impact on growth. If a child is a picky eater at age 2 – 3, they will likely be a picky eater for most of their childhood. Aside from the obvious problems associated with this, such a child will be at at increased risk of unhealthy eating practices as an adult, with an increased risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Optimum food acceptance happens by 2 years of age. It is important to take advantage of this key nutrition window. We know for sure that nutrition can be manipulated during the first 1000 days of life. This is a golden opportunity of fairly recent discovery.
10 goals for complementary feeding
- Start with an iron fortified infant formula low in sugar
- Introduce vegetables before fruit
- Offer a new food at least 15 times before concluding that your infant will not accept it
- Do not combine all foods together creating an unidentifiable brown mush
- Keep mixed meals colourful
- Present familiar and accepted foods in different forms – cooked, raw, mashed, cubed, steamed, roasted
- Allow self feeding of finger foods. At 10 months, infants should be able to spoon feed themselves
- Be a good example, eating all the foods you wish your infant to eat
- A variety of nutritious foods must be introduced by 2 years of age (wholegrains, vegetables, fruits, legumes, meat, chicken, fish, eggs and dairy)
- Enjoy a variety of foods as a family in a positive environment free from distraction
You may also like: Baby Led Weaning
For more guidance, you can purchase my nutr-e-book : Serving Potential on a Plate (Complementary Feeding). This guide discusses both baby led weaning and traditional spoon feeding for the introduction of solids. Each has its merits and careful use both can be used to ensure an optimum nutrient intake with minimum fuss.
The cost of the nutr-e-book is R90.00. For more information and a sample read, click the image above.
References:
High protein intake in young children and increased weight gain and obesity risk1
Berthold Koletzko*, Hans Demmelmair, Veit Grote, Christine Prell, and Martina Weber
