Paper Example. Increasing Healthy Eating in Children

Children's food preferences and eating patterns are established in the early stages of life. A year-old child is characterized by significant developmental changes in eating behavior as they gain truncal control; children transition from sucking liquids to eating solid food (Berti & Agostoni, 2017). Children's oral motor skills change from a normal suck-swallow mechanism to a chew swallow. If children develop a poor habit towards foods such as vegetables and fruits, mealtimes can be confrontational and stressful. Because there are inexperience and stressful caregivers who need assistance with their children's healthy eating habits, nutritious mealtime behavior is appropriate in increasing healthy eating habits.

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Eating and Attachment

Children's eating habits can be improved through emotional attachment. Ideally, eating habit begins in infancy, when a child and the parents create a partnership where they interpret and recognize both verbal and non-verbal communication signals from each other(Campos et al., 2019). Thus, the relationship creates an emotional attachment and bonding between caregivers and infants that are crucial in healthy social functioning. When communication between caregivers and children is disrupted by factors like non-responsive and inconsistent interaction, the attachment bond ceases not to be secure, which in turn, leads to upsetting and unproductive battles over food. Thus, communication between a caregiver and a child is crucial to improving healthy eating behavior.

Children who do not showcase clear signals to their parents or caregivers to allow them to develop predictable routines for playing, sleeping, and eating may experience regulatory challenges that include eating. Premature and ill infants are unlikely to communicate satiety or hunger and less responsive as compared to healthy full-term children (Emley et al., 2017). Parents and caregivers who can hardly recognize children's satiety cues are likely to overfeed them, which makes the children associate satiety feelings with conflict and frustration.

Caregiver-Child Relationship

Caregiver-child feeding context' variability relates to a child's eating behaviors and growth. Feeding context entails a broader dimension of parental nurturance and structure. One way of nurturing a child's eating behavior is through making a schedule. For instance, a child should eat every three to four hours. Children within the age bracket of 4 to 6 should be given lots of fluids, two snacks, and three meals (Parizkova, 2016). A caregiver needs to plan for dinner. Dinner should be balanced containing protein sources like beans, cheese, and meat; a vegetable or fruit; a whole-grained bread which entails pasta and rice.

Responsive feeding should mirror a reciprocal pattern where caregivers give developmentally appropriate responses and guidance to their children's signals of satiety and hunger (Berti & Agostoni, 2017). Unresponsive feeding is reflected by a lack of reciprocity between children and their caregivers, where a caregiver takes more control of the feeding context.

One way to have a healthy eating habit in a child is to embrace a responsive feeding style. The style is a derivative of authoritative parenting, where instead of caregivers being only role models, they create a relationship with their children (Campos et al., 2019). Thus, the children can make apparent demands, and the caregiver provides a mutual interpretation of bids and signs for mealtime interaction. In this context, the interaction is contingent on children's behavior, prompt, developmentally appropriate with simple give and take.

Healthy eating habits can be encouraged through an indulgent feeding style. In essence, an indulgent feeding style occurs when a caregiver allows a child to decide on the meal, such as explaining what and when to eat (Burton et al., 2017). If there ceases to be a parental guideline, a child will be more likely to be attracted to high-sugar food instead of a more balanced variety like vegetables. However, an indulgent feeding style may be problematic in ensuring healthy eating habits based on a child's genetic predisposition to salty and sweet tastes. Caregivers' children who exhibit indulgent feeding styles are more substantial as compared to others using non-indulgent styles.

Children's eating habits can be improved through an involved feeding style. However, an uninvolved feeding style represents parents and caregivers who have limited involvement and knowledge in their children's mealtime habits (Emley et al., 2017). The feeding style is characterized by non-verbalization and inactive physical help during feeding. Uninvolved feeding style should be avoided in a healthy eating habit as the feeders tend to ignore their children's recommendations.

Children eating habit is negatively and positively influenced by controlling the feeding style. A controlling feeding style entails those caregivers who use restrictive strategies and force to control mealtimes (Campos et al., 2019). Ideally, controlling feeding depends on the overall parenting authoritarian patterns, which entails over-stimulating behaviors such as overpowering the child, forcing foods, and speaking loudly (Burton et al., 2017). Caregivers' use of force may override their children's internal regulatory cues for satiety and hunger. Controlling feeding can also be a practical approach to decreasing weight loss if a child thought to consume does not.

Food Preference

Caregivers who model healthy eating behaviors for their children prefer vegetables and fruit. In essence, every caregiver must understand that food preferences are influenced by conditions (Taylor, 2018). Foods that are associated with unpleasant health symptoms such as pain or nausea are highly avoided by children. Children avoid food associated with distress or anxiety experienced at mealtimes characterized by confrontations and arguments.

In increasing healthy eating habit for children, caregiver needs to understand many aspects. Caregivers need to understand children accept and reject food based on appearance, temperature, smell, texture, and taste (Taylor, 2018). Children accept food based on environmental factors such as the people present, the setting, and the outcomes of eating or not eating. In this context, the outcomes of not eating entail extra time for play, which becomes the ultimate focus or feeding on snack food rather than regular meals. Eating consequences entails attention from caregivers, participation in social function, and relief from hunger.

Eating habits can be improved by increasing their familiarity with food taste. Caregivers achieve this by pairing a new food with their preferred food. A caregiver should be consistent in doing so until the food becomes no longer new (Burton et al., 2017). Thus, caregivers should adjust their attitude to understand that whatever the child eat over time matters. If caregivers balance the child's real pressure with smart physical activity and food choices can be useful in making sure the child stays healthy. Nutrition programs, education, and support from health professionals can be useful in helping caregivers to address the challenges of eating behavior during childhood. The programs help caregivers to have a predictable schedule for their children.

In conclusion, the relationship creates an emotional attachment and bonding between caregivers and infants that are crucial in healthy social functioning. Caregiver-child feeding context' variability relates to a child's eating behaviors and growth. Feeding context entails a broader dimension of parental nurturance and structure.

References

Berti, C., & Agostoni, C. (2017). Programming long-term health: Establishing healthy eating patterns in early infancy. Early Nutrition and Long-Term Health, 427-470. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-100168-4.00017-3

Burton, E. T., Wilder, T., Beech, B. M., & Bruce, M. A. (2017). Caregiver feeding practices and weight status among African American adolescents: The Jackson heart KIDS pilot study. Eating Behaviors, 27, 33-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2017.11.002

Campos, R., Catarina Serrano, A., B Cavaco, T., & Esquina, R. (2019). Eating behavior disorder in early infancy - Undereating disorder – An insight into the family. https://doi.org/10.26226/morressier.5d1a036457558b317a13f9ab

Emley, E. A., Taylor, M. B., & Musher-Eizenman, D. R. (2017). Mindful feeding and child dietary health. Eating Behaviors, 24, 89-94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2016.12.002

Parizkova, J. (2016). Nutrition, physical activity, and health in early life (2nd ed.). CRC Press.

Taylor, H. (2018). FEEDS: Focus on early eating, drinking, and swallowing. http://isrctn.com/. https://doi.org/10.1186/isrctn10454425