Taking care of and raising a lazy child is a struggle for many parents. When your child has anorexia nervosa, you often tend to force him to eat. This usually does not bring many positive results. Find out the causes of anorexia, and the consequences of forcing your child to eat to have the right solution.
Why are children lazy to eat?
1. The child’s health condition is not good
Children’s poor health is the reason why children are lazy to eat than usual. When children are sick, children often feel tired, nauseous, bitter in their mouth, lazy to eat even vomit during and after eating. Therefore, parents should pay attention to the baby’s daily manifestations more often, if the child shows signs of cough, runny nose, low fever, etc., take the child to see a doctor instead. Force your child to eat to avoid the case when the disease has worsened and there is a risk of dangerous complications and difficulty to treat.
2. The menu is not suitable for the baby’s taste
A menu with a full range of scientific standard nutrients is necessary for the development of children. However, many children do not want to eat these foods. When it does not suit the child’s taste, the child will be lazy to eat and when the parents force or force the child to eat, inadvertently it will cause the child to be pressured at each meal, leading to the psychology of being lazy and afraid of eating.
Many children, when being eaten by their parents, will find a way to resist by holding food in their mouth, even when they sleep, they still have their mouths full of food, which not only makes children lazy to eat but also leads to a series of problems. related to nutrition.
3. Children snack too much before meals
For snacks, if children eat too much, it will lead to fullness in the main meal and children will tend to lose their appetite and skip meals. Besides, junk food is often very harmful to children’s health. Typical dishes: Confectionery, snacks, potato chips… These foods are full of artificial sweeteners and high in fat and starch, which will harm the baby’s physical and mental health. When children eat too much of these foods, it will cause dental problems such as tooth decay or other health problems such as Digestive disorders, constipation, obesity, osteoporosis, and heart problems, and can be a risk factor for cancer later in life.
4. Children with vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Currently, children are susceptible to a deficiency of minerals such as zinc, and selenium, which will make them feel unappetizing and slow to eat. If the necessary nutrients are not promptly supplemented, children who are lazy to eat for a long time will cause malnutrition, stunting, slow growth, and slow brain development.
5. Children are too hyperactive
The fact that the child is hyperactive is a good sign that the child has good motor and thinking abilities. However, children are too eager to play leading to skipping food is the most common cause of children who are lazy to eat. The distraction in eating because of the surrounding influences will gradually become a habit, causing slow growth in children.
Consequences of forcing children to eat
1. Overweight
Forcing children to eat too many leads to high levels of lipids in the blood, causing fatty liver disease. According to studies, the rate of children who are forced to eat too much will have the risk of obesity is 31.4%, and the rate of fatty liver disease increases by 7.8% compared to other children. In addition, if this condition persists, these children will be at high risk of medical problems such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, kidney stones, gout, and many related diseases. different as an adult.
2. Psychological influence
Forcing children to eat leads to unhealthy eating habits that cause psychological effects on children and create a feeling of fear of eating. Forcing a child to eat will affect the child’s unconscious, making the child’s psyche tend to be hot-tempered, angry, aggressive, or disruptive, leading to an increased risk of accidents in daily life.
3. Create bad habits in eating
Ironically, children who are forced to eat often become thinner and lazy to eat, grow slowly, and are more malnourished than children who are not forced to eat by their families. This leads to a bad consequence that the child will not eat well, and eat in a hostile way.
What to do when a child is lazy to eat?
So what should be done to overcome anorexia in children? To overcome the child’s slow growth, mothers need to take some of the following measures:
1. Don’t take too long
Parents should plan a certain amount of time and ask the child to eat only during this time. Many children eat from morning to noon, and lunch lasts until the afternoon. It’s all about eating all day, but there’s not much to it. Parents are tired, children are equally anorexic.
Determining the time for the baby, which should not last more than 30 minutes, helps the child focus on the meal, after which he will not eat anymore. If children eat too little, then they can add yogurt, fruit, or other nutritious foods. Or you can try to feed your baby at the next meal or increase the meal for him.
2. Do not force children to eat
Do not force your child to eat when he or she does not want to eat. If the child eats too little, parents can divide the meal of the day into 3-4 meals. Just give your child a small bowl of rice, porridge, or flour each time, so don’t eat too much. Children can eat more yogurt and whey in later meals.
3. Change dishes, cooking methods
Parents can design to change the way of processing, and should not force their children to eat a dish that causes a feeling of boredom. Mothers can feed children gradually, eat crushed rice, and chopped noodles … evaluate whether the child eats more deliciously. Besides, the mother can also feed the child porridge, flour, mashed banana, ground tuber… so let the child eat it by himself, or guide the child to eat it by himself.
If the mother does not have much time, she can prepare food for the whole week, but it should not be steamed, only preliminary processing should be done (such as peeling shrimp, grinding food, dividing meals into small portions), then letting them cook. frozen. When the meal is near, defrost it by putting it in the refrigerator to defrost gradually, so it will not lose its quality and create a more appetizing feeling for the dish.
4. Diversify the menu
According to a study by the National Institute of Nutrition, Vietnamese children are very susceptible to vitamin and mineral deficiencies because their children’s nutrition has not been guaranteed and properly invested. Depending on the condition and condition, each child will have different needs, interests, and tastes. A beautifully decorated dish is easy to attract children to eat more. Therefore, please take the time to design beautiful dishes to stimulate the appetite of children.
5. Create good habits for children
Families need to give children time to increase physical activity. Letting your baby play or participate in exercise will be a way for him to be healthier, limiting the time he spends watching TV or sitting in one place. Besides, you should also teach your baby the habit of not snacking, not eating too late, and not eating too much-fried food or sweets. From an early age, adults need to teach children how to fuel themselves when hungry and drink water even when not thirsty.
Finally, parents should take their children to a regular doctor, adults need to regularly record the children’s height and weight indicators to easily detect abnormal signs such as a sudden increase in the baby’s weight or new pathogens emerging.