Harvey Howard is the owner of My Gym Children’s Fitness Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is a certified special education teacher, elementary teacher, guidance counselor, and student assistance professional located in New Jersey. Here he discusses how the foods parents feed their children can impact their performance in school and life.
The effect that diet has on children is huge. The amount of sugar and different chemicals that we parents put into our children these days is phenomenal, and that can create different allergies that your child might not otherwise have.
When it comes to the types of food parents pick out, the more whole, natural foods you feed your children the more your child is going to have a balanced central nervous system. Loading kids up with colors, dyes, and other processed chemicals just gives their nervous system more to interact with and puts them at risk in the long term. So less is better when it comes to feeding your kids processed foods.
Overweight children are becoming a crisis in our culture. There is a lot of research on the effect of being overweight, both in terms of development of diabetes, heart conditions, and clogged arteries. You are even seeing kids with high blood pressure at 12 years old now based on diet, which is why I explain to parents that they should be putting thought into the foods they put on their child’s plate.
The concept of what goes in makes up who you are, another factor that people overlook. Once food goes in your mouth, your body is absorbing it and it isn’t just going on through. If your body is absorbing it, then it’s staying in there. That’s why we tell our kid to drink milk—because it has calcium and they need it for their bones and their organs. Well, whatever else you are eating is getting absorbed into your bones as well, whether that is unhealthy food, processed chemical, caffeine, or trans fat.
Avoid Sugar
Specifically, avoiding sugar as much as possible should be the ideal for parents. Of course, on you child’s birthday, you are still going to give him a birthday cake with sugar in it. That’s fine. But a proper diet is about the moderation of sugar—and specifically avoiding candy, sodas, and other things like that early on. Kids are going to get that stuff—it is coming eventually. There is no way to avoid it in our society. But the more sugars and processed foods you give your child at an early age, the less chance you’re giving their body to develop in a healthy manner.
Avoid Caffeine
Another thing parents should not be giving their kids is caffeine. That includes anything that has caffeine in it, too. Chocolate is something that has caffeine in it, for example. So the less chocolate children get early on, the less caffeine effect they are going to get in their bodies. Many people don’t seem to get this. I see parents’ feeding their 1-year-olds chocolate candy or giving their toddlers a can of soda in place of a bottle. That type of diet puts weight on in the long term.
Avoid Trans Fats
Any kind of trans fat and any type of food with trans fat in it is not good for your child. If the food is not good for adults to eat, then it is surely not good for a child under five years old to eat it. Things like that are very counterproductive, because you do not want to load up your child’s arteries with all these fats.
So diet is radically important in kids’ self-esteem, how they relate, and how fast they are. Kids who are overweight are not as fast, agile, or balanced as their peers. It is to a large degree a parental outcome of their children’s weight. Kids who are overweight are eating too much food and they are eating the wrong kinds of food. It can affect their behavior, whether they are irritable, cranky, or upset—that is surely oftentimes an outcome of diet.
The information in the article is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.
