“Good Nutrition is a foundation of a child’s survival, health, and development”.
What are you insights on this quote?
Starting from birth, we all know instinctively that food is crucial to our own survival. Our rooting, sucking, and swallowing reflexes during infancy were present to help us attain the food that we need for our growth and development. With poor nutrition in infancy, it may associate with poor growth and development a condition called failure to thrive. And although this poor nutrition or poor feeding causes vary, the end result for infants could be the same. It may lead to infant’s heightened risk for serious illness, that is responsible, directly or indirectly, for one third of the estimated 9.5 million deaths that occurred in 2006 in children less than 5 years or age.
But, what really is a proper or good nutrition? And why is it so important for children especially the infants? Well, there is an undeniably strong relationship between nutrition, health, and learning, and that nutrition is one of the three major factors that impact a child’s development. This is highlighted when the mother is not giving enough nutrition for herself and the baby during her pregnancy years. Under-nutrition during pregnancy stunts fetal growth and can lead to poor brain development that can result in irreversible chronic illnesses. The same is true when the mother doesn’t breastfeed during the first 6 months after delivery, the baby’s risk for attaining illness and infection increases based on studies over the years. And the domino effect of poor nutrition on the child’s growth and development continues in the next 4, 10, and so on years of his/her life.
The benefits of good nutrition serving as foundation of a child’s survival, health, and development are endless but let me cite some conclusions made by researchers to prove this quote. Firstly, breastfeeding mothers following nutritious diets leads to fewer and less severe cases among their children of illnesses including diarrhea, ear infection, and bacterial meningitis. The reason is that, 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 and 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 behavior changes and delayed psychomotor development. Thirdly, under-nutrition has been proven to decrease a child’s activity levels, social interactions, curiosity, and cognitive functioning.
All facts stated above actually saddens me as clearly, the socioeconomic divide is getting more emphasized with what some mothers can offer to their child for maximal nutrition for their infant’s growth and development versus the marginalized mothers who could only provide so much. We cannot deny the fact that poverty is still one of the top reasons why mothers cannot provide at least adequate nutrition to their infants causing infant’s failure to thrive condition. We hope that our existing laws and policies help these marginalized mothers so not only we reduce the infant’s mortality and morbidity rate of our country but also we help the children achieve their maximum living potential with their healthy growth and development. And we should never stop these advocacies until we reach that goal.
References:
Chulack, A. (2016). The Importance of Nutrition in Early Childhood Development. Novac Djokovic Foundation. https://novakdjokovicfoundation.org/importance-nutrition-early-childhood-development/.
Infant and Young Child Feeding: Model Chapter for Textbooks for Medical Students and Allied Health Professionals. Geneva: World Health Organization. (2009). SESSION 1, The importance of infant and young child feeding and recommended practices. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK148967/.