If your child’s height and weight do not meet the standards, diet is the key!

Although the nutritional status of children and adolescents has been greatly improved with the improvement of our living standards, there are still some children and adolescents who are in a state of malnutrition, mainly manifested in height, weight, or overall lower than the normal range of the same age group, including stunted growth, low weight and emaciation. According to the "Report on the Nutrition and Chronic Disease Status of Chinese Residents (2020)", the rates of stunted growth, low weight and emaciation in children under 6 years old are 4.8%, 2% and 2% respectively, and the rates of stunted growth, low weight and emaciation in children and adolescents aged 6-17 are 1.7%, 4.2% and 8.7% respectively.

For children with malnutrition, reasonable nutritional support is the key. Therefore, we will give the following suggestions based on the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" and "Dietary Guidelines for Children and Adolescents with Growth Retardation (2023 Edition)":

1. Eat enough and eat in a balanced way

Sufficient food intake is the key to ensuring adequate nutrition for children. Parents can use the reference of the intake of various foods for different age groups in Table 1 to assess whether the children's daily diet is insufficient. Insufficient food intake is the main cause of malnutrition. If it is found that children are not consuming enough of one or more foods, they should find ways to make up for it in the main meal or snacks.

Source: Chinese Nutrition Society. Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022), Dietary Guidelines for Chinese School-Age Children (2022), Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Preschool Children (2022).

2. Reasonable cooking and fancy plating

For children and adolescents, it is crucial to cultivate healthy eating behaviors. We should not only let children know how much to eat different types of food, but also pay attention to the cultivation of taste, which requires us to pay attention to the use of various cooking methods and condiments in daily life. Parents should reduce frying, grilling, smoking, and pickling in daily cooking, and choose stir-frying, steaming, boiling, stewing, and simmering. It is not recommended to use too much oil, sugar, salt and other condiments. We can choose natural ingredients to increase the taste, such as tomatoes, onions, coriander, ginger, onions, etc., and we can also add fruits to the dishes for seasoning. Taking into account that children's digestive function is relatively weak, we might as well cut the food into smaller pieces and cook it softer so that children can digest and absorb food more easily.

In addition, in order to make children more interested in food, we should also pay attention to the color matching of various foods and choose patterned plates (various animal shapes, flower shapes, etc.). We can also make food into different shapes, which can increase the beauty and richness of the dishes and achieve the purpose of increasing the desire to eat.

3. Choose snack foods appropriately to ensure nutritional intake

Since children's stomach capacity is relatively small and they exercise a lot, the regular three meals often cannot meet their daily nutritional needs. This requires us to add extra snacks to ensure nutritional intake. To this end, we can add breakfast, lunch and dinner according to the age of the children, and then choose to add meals once, twice or three times a day according to the situation. Children with malnutrition should pay attention to regular and nutritious meals.

When it comes to the choice of snacks, most parents tend to give snacks such as biscuits, potato chips, candies, chocolates, etc. These foods not only have a small variety of nutrients, but also affect the children's regular meal intake. We might as well use milk, yogurt and fruit as snacks, and we can also make vegetable and meat porridge, egg noodles, wontons, fancy steamed buns, egg custard, etc. as snacks, so as to supplement nutrition from all aspects and ensure that every bite of food children take in has certain nutritional value.

(IV) Insufficient food intake: Foods for special medical purposes can help

When parents increase food intake and change cooking methods, but the child's nutritional status still does not improve significantly, they can choose special medical food for children (hereinafter referred to as special medical food) under the guidance of doctors and nutritionists. Special medical food has the characteristics of high energy density and balanced nutrition. Usually, every 1 ml contains 1 kcal of energy. When food intake is insufficient, drinking 300-500 ml of special medical food every day can largely supplement the child's insufficient nutrient intake, but the specific intake still needs to go to the clinical nutrition department and choose the appropriate formula and appropriate dosage according to age, nutritional status, disease status, etc. under the guidance of doctors and nutritionists.

Malnutrition in children will affect the normal growth and development of their height and weight. Parents must pay attention to this. Once it is found that the height and weight of children are lagging behind those of children of the same age, parents should go to the clinical nutrition department of the hospital in time to find out the relevant reasons, conduct relevant nutritional assessment and guidance, so that children can catch up with normal height and weight as soon as possible, so that there will be no regrets in their childhood!

References:

1. Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022), Dietary Guidelines for Chinese School-Age Children (2022), Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Preschool Children (2022), Dietary Guidelines for Children and Adolescents with Growth Retardation (2023 Edition).

2. The picture comes from the Chinese Nutrition Society.

National Nutrition Week, registered dietitians take action

Author: Niu Yang

Instructors: Cai Wei, Tang Qingya, Feng Yi

Department of Clinical Nutrition, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine

Project source: Shanghai Health Science Popularization Youth Talent Project (JKKPYC-2022-06)