Chapter 8 Summary: RefectionâThe Child's Diet
Scientific Approach to Child Nutrition
⢠Child diet is not adult diet in smaller portions - Children have unique nutritional needs
"It is well known to-day that the diet must be adapted to the physical nature of the child; and as the medicine of children is not the medicine of adults in reduced doses, so the diet must not be that of the adult in lesser quantitative proportions"
⢠School nutrition programs essential - Even wealthy families need guidance on proper child feeding
"Even in the case of rich children, school refection would always be advisable until a scientific course in cooking shall have introduced into the wealthier families the habit of specialising in children's food"
⢠Diet rich in fats and sugar for growing bodies - These support tissue development
"The diet of little children must be rich in fats and sugar: the first for reserve matter and the second for plastic tissue. In fact, sugar is a stimulant to tissues in the process of formation"
Food Preparation Principles
⢠All food must be minced or soft - Children cannot properly chew or digest large pieces
"It is well that the alimentary substances should always be minced, because the child has not yet the capacity for completely masticating the food, and his stomach is still incapable of fulfilling the function of mincing food matter"
⢠Fresh foods retain "living" qualities - Freshness aids assimilation and growth
"They have the so-called enzymes which facilitate assimilation into the tissues... if they are fresh and intact, keeping in themselves, one may say, the life of the animals which produced them"
⢠Proper cooking preserves nutritional value - Minimal cooking better than heavy processing
"Cooking, on the other hand, makes the milk and eggs lose their special conditions of assimilability and reduces the nutritive power in them to the simple power of any nitrogenous substance"
Specific Food Recommendations
⢠Milk and eggs as foundation foods - Best sources of digestible protein for children
"Milk fresh from the cow, and the egg while it is still warm, are assimilable to the highest degree"
⢠Light meats only - Chicken, veal, fish appropriate; avoid heavy, fatty meats
"The meats most adapted to children are so-called white meats, that is, in the first place, chicken, then veal; also the light flesh of fish"
⢠Fresh fruits properly prepared - Remove all indigestible parts, cook harder fruits
"Peaches, apricots, grapes, currants, oranges, and mandarins, in their natural state, can be given to little children with great advantage"
Forbidden Foods and Substances
⢠Absolutely no alcohol in any form - Alcohol is particularly destructive to developing organisms
"Alcohol is a poison especially fatal to organisms in the process of formation. Not only does it arrest their total development (whence infantilism, idiocy), but also predisposes the child to nervous maladies"
⢠No stimulating beverages - Coffee, tea, and fermented drinks excluded
"All fermented beverages, and those exciting to the nervous system, are injurious to children; hence, all alcoholic and caffeic beverages are absolutely eliminated from child diet"
⢠Limited seasonings - Only salt, sugar, fats, vinegar, and lemon juice appropriate
"Sugar and some fat substances along with kitchen salt (sodium chloride) should constitute the principal part of the seasonings"
Meal Structure and Timing
⢠Rigorous meal schedules essential - Regular timing crucial for digestion and health
"One principle must dominate, and must be diffused, among mothers, namely, that the children shall be kept to rigorous meal hours in order that they may enjoy good health and have excellent digestion"
⢠No eating between meals - Continuous snacking harmful to children's delicate digestive systems
"Outside of their regular meal hours, children should not eat... the child, in view of the special delicacy of his digestive system, has more need of regular meals than the adult has"
⢠Two school meals recommended - Hearty noon meal and light afternoon snack
"In a 'Children's House' with a long programme there ought to be two meals, a hearty one about noon, and a light one about four in the afternoon"
Educational Integration
⢠Fresh garden vegetables at school - Children can grow, harvest, and eat their own food
"I should have cultivated in the garden plots vegetables which can be used in the diet, in order to have them plucked in their freshness, cooked, and enjoyed"
⢠Children participate in food preparation - Learning table setting and proper eating habits
"Another important educative application which school-refection in the 'Children's Houses' has to offer... consists in the preparing of the table, arranging the table linen, learning its nomenclature"
⢠Teaching proper eating behaviors - Cleanliness and use of utensils as life skills
"It is very important to teach the children to eat with cleanliness, both with respect to themselves and with respect to their surroundings... and to use the table implements"
Social Impact of Proper Nutrition
⢠Combating harmful folk beliefs - Educating parents about proper child feeding
"There prevails among the people... the prejudice that children in order to grow well must be eating almost continuously, without regularity, nibbling almost habitually a crust of bread"
⢠Children's Houses as centers of health education - Spreading scientific nutrition knowledge
"If the 'Children's Houses' were to succeed in enlightening the people on such truths, they would be accomplishing a very lofty hygienic work for the new generations"
⢠Even poor families can feed children well - Proper knowledge more important than wealth
"The poorer classes who have no meat-broth can feed their children equally well with soups of boiled bread and porridge seasoned with oil"