Raising Kids To healthy heights
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Infancy

The first year of your baby’s life is marked by tremendous growth. By their first birthday, your baby should have nearly tripled his or her birth weight! With this first year of life, or “infancy” begins the development of eating behaviors that help shape future food preferences and eating habits. These behaviors may influence what they eat, when they eat, where they eat and even why they eat. These behaviors are greatly influenced by their surroundings, more specifically: their family and home.

The ability to raise children to make healthy choices, control their own intake and resist over-eating is greatly influenced throughout different stages of feeding, and through the interactions of their environment.

Breast Feeding

Breast or bottle? New mothers are quickly put in the position of making the decision whether to breastfeed or formula-feed. Peer, medical and even spousal ‘pressure’ to breastfeed is often placed on new mothers. The decision to breast-feed or formula feed comes down to a personal decision, and one that best suits you and your baby. However, the benefits of breastfeeding should be considered before your baby is even born – they are too important to overlook.

There is no arguing the benefits of breast-feeding over formula feeding – despite how advanced our infant formulas are today. The fact is: breast milk is uniquely designed to meet the needs of your baby. These needs include necessary proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the appropriate forms and concentrations. Breast milk also provides immune-system enhancing benefits that are believed to help reduce the amount of ear infections, upper respiratory infections and diarrhea (10). Breastfeeding is also more cost effective, always available and at the perfect temperature!

In addition to all of that, breastfeeding is believed to help provide protection against the onset of overweight and obesity in our children. Unlike the nutrients and immune boosting benefits, these benefits of protection are not a detectable nutrient, but rather intrinsic behavioral and metabolic mechanisms that are realized through the act of breastfeeding (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8). Such mechanisms as:

Ability to control their own intake

We are all born with an innate “cueing” system that alerts us to when we are hungry, and when we have had enough to eat, otherwise known as satiety - or being “satisfied.” The ability of a baby to respond to their “satiety” cues has a lot to do with mom’s interference – or lack there of.

While breastfeeding, mothers do not have a visual gage as to how much their baby is taking in. This gives their babies full control over their intake – and they are able to respond to their internal cues for satiety. With formula and bottle fed babies, there is more ‘mommy-induced’ control over the feedings. Mom’s encouragement to finish the bottle often requires her baby to eat past their satiety cues. Over time, this inability to respond to their internal cues can disrupt their abilities to self regulate their food intake (1,2,9). And the inability to control or manage the intake of food, leading us to overeat - is a contributor to the onset of overweight in children and adults.

Acceptance to Healthy Foods

True or false: Eating broccoli will make your baby gassy.

Answer: False

There has never been a study that has confirmed this old wives tale. Broccoli, cauliflower and some beans are known gas producers in our diets because of the bacteria that are produced from the breakdown of fiber during digestion. This occurs within the GI track and cannot be transferred to mom’s milk. What is typical, however, is for breastfeeding mothers to rationalize these common fussy or gassy behaviors that many newborns experience, on to something they have eaten in their diet.

What is important in healthy habit building is to incorporate these vegetables – and as many others as possible – into your diet while breastfeeding. Studies have shown that the flavors of many foods can actually seep into and ‘flavor’ the breast milk. The early introduction of vegetables among breast fed babies is often easier in transition and quicker in acceptance after they have had prior exposure to the same flavors from breast milk (4,5,6,7,8,9).

The flavor bridge to healthy food preferences begins as early as gestation and lactation, and is greatly influenced through your own diet! By incorporating a variety of fruits and vegetables into your diet, your ability to begin healthy habit building can start during pregnancy, and carry on through the first few months of breastfeeding. Experts believe it may take a baby up to seven early exposures (either through the amniotic fluid or through breast milk) to create a positive effect on the future acceptance of that same vegetable (9).

But be mindful – just as this flavor bridge can influence your child to become more readily accepting of healthy food choices, this same flavor bridge can just as easily influence the early formation of unhealthy eating preferences and habits. If your diet is high in processed foods, concentrated sugars and fat – you very well may be influencing those same preferences on your baby.

The benefits of breast feeding in providing protection against obesity later on in life presents a compelling case as to why mom’s should give it their greatest effort. However, the benefits outlined above are believed to provide ‘protection’ – not immunity against obesity. And the benefits of protection are not consistent in all breast-fed children. Many formula and bottle fed children grow up to maintain a healthy body weight and exhibit healthy eating behaviors, while many breast-fed children grow up to become obese adults prone to diabetes, heart disease and cancers (16). These findings further demonstrate that healthy habit building consists of various factors and at different stages in life.

Solid Food Introduction

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends beginning your baby on solids between 4 and 6 months of life. Discuss your baby’s developmental readiness with your Pediatrician before beginning solids.

Solid food introduction begins with the single introduction of grains, vegetables and fruits and eventually transitions to finger and table food items by their first birthday. There are many situations during this formative year of food introduction when the interaction of parents or caregivers can negatively influence their child’s acceptance of healthy foods. These influences may appear seemingly innocent, and in fact considered common practice – but the reality is that it could potentially sabotage the efforts of encouraging healthy food choices. Being aware of these influences could help avoid pitfalls along the way of healthy habit building.

Encourage their acceptance of first vegetables

Okay, lets be honest: how many adults stock up on strained and pureed spinach, green beans and peas? The reality is that many baby foods are not very pleasing on the eyes or the nose! But just because we wouldn’t eat it for dinner doesn’t mean our babies shouldn’t eat it either! Don’t forget - their innate preferences are to sweet foods, like bananas and pears. The green and orange stuff definitely makes their faces grimace, their tongues thrust and may even cause a shiver or two. These reactions are not only common – but they are expected! Babies are born with a fear of new tastes, known as food “neophobic” – and will require repeated exposure before acceptance. Part of their acceptance is your stamp of approval.

However, your stamp of approval is often null and void by seemingly innocent gestures:

DON’T: agree with them! Grimacing back with a similar distasteful facial expression further validates your baby’s initial rejection. Some parents may even add a playful comment along with the facial grimace, such as: “I know it’s yucky!

DO: Even though it really looks and smells unappetizing to you – try to remain neutral! We’re building healthy habits, here, and getting past the initial rejection stage may take up to 10 tries of that same “yucky” vegetable! Your baby will look for validation in you – so smile, say yummy… work it!

DON’T: add bananas, applesauce or pears to the peas! Covering the bland or bitter flavors from vegetables just further validates that the taste is so bad that mom had to ‘make it go away’ by adding dessert to it. Not only does this further confirm the ‘yuck factor,’ but it also emphasizes that sweet foods are not just delicious – but can act as a bandage as well.

Do: Be sensitive to your baby’s cues – don’t try to push past their refusal. But just as important, don’t give up after just a few rejections. Like most everything else that is not innate, acceptance will take practice, patience and perseverance. On average, it may take up to 10 introductions of any given food before your child will accept them into their diet. So don’t toss in the towel after a couple rejections!

Don’t introduce unnecessary and inappropriate food items

In 2002, a national survey was conducted to analyze the diets of over 3,000 random infants and toddlers. This study, named FITS for “Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study” revealed that on average, babies and toddlers were consuming more calories than needed, were eating far below the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and consumed inappropriately high calorie foods items such as French fries, high sugar desserts and fruit juice as early as 4-6 months of age (11).

As your baby advances from pureed foods to a diet that is more similar to yours, introduction of fast foods and processed food items may be tempting. During these most formative stages of your baby’s development, introducing foods high in fat, salt, sugar, artificial colors and additives may sabotage your efforts in establishing healthy habits. Babies and toddlers need very little sodium, and most processed and fast foods are loaded with salt. This puts a lot of stress on their kidneys, which are still being developed. In addition, excess fat and sugar add extra calories to your baby’s diet without added benefits of nutrition – and are known contributors of obesity.

Offer fruit juice in moderation (if at all!)

Aside from the potential relief of constipation from prune or pear juice, there are no substantial benefits from giving your baby fruit juice. The American Academy of Pediatrics do not recommend introducing fruit juice into your babies diet before the age of 6 months, and even then not to exceed 4-6 ounces a day.

Despite these recommendations, the AAP does acknowledge the risks of over consumption of fruit juice in babies and toddlers diets in their policy statement titled “The Use and Misuse of Fruit Juice in Pediatrics” Some of these risks include the potential decline in intake of beneficial nutrition such as milk and formula, decrease in whole fruit intake (which contains fiber and naturally occurring vitamins and minerals); chronic diarrhea, and may predispose them to dental cavities. There is also the risk of your child becoming dependent on juice as their source of hydration because it tastes so good. Overconsumption of fruit juice is a known contributor of obesity in children.

If you do introduce your baby to fruit juice – follow the recommendations as outlined by the AAP: Do not introduce juice before 6 months, include it as part of a nutritional meal or snack - not sipped on throughout the day, and do not put juice in baby bottles – use a toddler cup. If you follow these guidelines, than 100% natural fruit juice can be incorporated into your child’s healthy diet.

Be A Super Model

Your infant is taking in all the sights of his new environment! Your habits, routines and behaviors are not going unnoticed!

Modeling healthy habits is essential for building healthy habits in your child. If you do not want your child’s diet to consist of processed foods high saturated fat, salt and sugar – than yours shouldn’t either. The “Do as I say, not as I do” model of parenting confuses your message and intentions, and could even set your child up for eating disorders later on in life from a preoccupation of “forbidden” foods (9).

Create an eating environment that embraces nutritious foods and healthy behaviors that everyone participates in. Take this time to evaluate your own diet and the feeding environment within your home. Do you encourage whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean protein, low fat and low sodium foods? Being able to make modifications to the eating environment your infant will grow up in will make a tremendous difference in building healthy habits in her future.

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