Child Development | Understanding The Role Of Nutrition & Cognitive Development

The first 3 years of life are a period of incredible growth in all areas of your child development.

Learn the significance of the nutrition and how it plays an important role in promoting healthy brain development, how young children build social and emotional skills, and ways you can support language and literacy development starting from birth.

A proper balance of nutrients in this formative period is critical for normal brain development. Shortages of nutrients such as iron and iodine can impair cognitive and motor development, and these effects are often irreversible. Many other nutrients—choline, folic acid, and zinc, to name just a few—have been linked specifically to early brain functioning.

The Role Of Nutrition In Child Development

The role of nutrition in brain development is complex. The effects of most nutrient shortages depend on the extent and duration of the shortage, and in many cases, the brain’s need for a particular nutrient changes throughout its development.

Early shortages can reduce cell production; later shortages can affect cell size and complexity. Nutrient deficits also affect the complex chemical processes of the brain and can lead to less efficient communication between brain cells.

Why Infants Might Not Get A Balanced Meals

Financial issues

If the family is very poor and can’t afford food then they might be at the mercy of whatever free food products are available.

Furthermore, if the family can’t afford nutritious food, they might settle for cheaper options, however such options being cheaper might be an illusion, particularly if these choices lead to health issues down the road.

Kids are picky eaters

When children fuss about many foods that are put before them, it’s much easier for parents to give in and provide whatever is easiest.

You know how this goes. The kid won’t eat what everyone else is eating so the parent resorts to pulling out frozen chicken nuggets or quickly making some other kid-friendly meal.

Junk food addiction

If children are addicted to junk food, it can be a constant battle to get them to eat real food.

Junk food is specially crafted to be addictive–to keep the person eating it coming back for more. Manufacturers use synthetic ingredients in addition to refining processes to do this–and it works!

Lack of nutrition knowledge intake

If the parents don’t know enough about proper nutrition, then they won’t know how to provide adequately nutritious meals in the home.

If you don’t know how to prepare produce or soak and cook beans, or do anything in the kitchen besides heat up meals in a microwave, then you will be at a handicap to feed your family well.

Food allergies

While food allergies alone typically won’t make it impossible to get good nutrition, it can make it more difficult.

Whatever the case might be, lack of nutrition or too much of it plays a significant role. In fact, here are some of the ways that child development is affected by the way a child eats.

Nutrition And Child’s Health

Is it really that important for children to be consuming all of the above nutrients though? The short answer: yes. The benefits of good nutrition to health are endless, but the following few conclusions made by researchers serve to prove my point.

Firstly, breastfeeding by mothers following nutritious diets leads to fewer and less severe cases among their children of illnesses including diarrhoea, ear infection and bacterial meningitis.

This is because better-nourished children have an enhanced natural ability to fight infection. Secondly, since iron is a vital component of brain tissue, iron deficiency makes nerve impulses move slower. Hence; this may cause permanent damage to a child’s brain. Especially; in the first two years of his/her life; iron deficiency during this time is linked to behaviour changes and delayed psychomotor development.

Thirdly, under-nutrition has been proven to decrease a child’s activity levels, social interactions, curiosity and cognitive functioning. Although; parents everywhere probably harbour the wish that their child wasn’t quite so hyperactivity jumping on their bed at 6am, good nutrition remains a must................Read More

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