NUTRITION IN INFANTS

Hello, kind-hearted, soulful, and healthy readers of our heavenly country.

Due to the numerous questions we’ve received from parents in recent weeks, we’re back this Sunday with a new series of articles. Healthy nutrition in babies is a very detailed topic. However, we can confidently say that in the first years of life, your baby’s primary source of nutrition is milk. Around six months old, you gradually introduce your baby to solid foods. This is to add new foods to their diet and to allow them to experience new tastes and textures. However, milk should always remain the main source of nutrition. Therefore, milk continues to be important even for babies who have entered childhood. As you may recall from our previous articles, we discussed a very important hormone that plays a crucial role in human development, from birth to old age: the growth hormone HGH.

Breast milk, formula milk, and their benefits would already be a separate series of articles. In fact, if we were to write about breast milk from a chemical standpoint, we’d be writing for months. The ideal nutrition for your baby is fresh foods that are free of sugar and salt. It’s also important to be mindful of simple carbohydrates, which are directly perceived as sugar in the body and then converted into fat and stored. However, whole grains have more fundamental nutritional value because they undergo less processing. Carbohydrates found in bread, pasta, and grains are important sources of energy for your baby. Protein is found in lean meat, fish, eggs, dairy products like cheese and yogurt, beans, and lentils. Protein plays a crucial role in bone and muscle development. We all need protein, but some consume too much. Even if you choose low-fat products, remember that your child needs foods containing more “healthy fats” (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats). Next week, we’ll discuss cooking techniques for healthy infant nutrition and the critical importance of keeping their sugar levels balanced. Children are our future. We must be knowledgeable and aware when guiding them. We must… Think of it as a reflection in a mirror, designed for the future. Because children don’t get stuck in the past and design the future. For them, only the present moment matters.

WEEKLY AWARENESS NOTE

A major reason for infant obesity is that parents ignore their children’s satiety signals and force them to lick the plate clean. Remember your own childhood? Parents often complain that their children don’t always behave well at the table. Our children prefer to run around and eat like they’re grazing rather than sitting down to eat. But this is what nature tells them to do. Because the idea of ​​sitting down at the table at a specific time and eating a huge meal is part of our cultural habits. Instead of thinking of mealtimes as a time to stuff as much food as possible into your baby’s mouth, it might be better for their psychological and physiological development to think of it as an opportunity for conversation where food is secondary.

Uğur Uğural