After talking a few days ago about children who eat little, we continue with the Infant Feeding Special in Babies and more speaking today of his opposites, that is, of children who eat too much in the eyes of others, or who eat too much, no longer in the eyes, that there are parents who do not see a problem in seeing that their child eats the same or more than an adult, but in sight of scale, when it tells us that Child weighs too much for his height and age.
I comment this because in the same way that there are children who eat little and are perfect in weight, there are also children who eat a lot, but a lot, and they are also very good weight. They are children with a thin or athletic constitution and with a high enough basal metabolism to ingest large amounts of calories without gaining weight.
However, not all children who eat a lot have that metabolism and there are many who begin to get fat and fat until someone says "Ep, this child is getting too fat," then having to start looking at everything that is being done badly. to straighten it and try to avoid possible health problems due to excess weight.
A problem that can start with the bottle
Artificial milk has the same calories as breast milk. Seen this way it does not make much sense to say that one can make children more obese, however one comes out of the mother's breast, from which you have to breastfeed to get out, and the other leaves a bottle, which does not have to make much effort To make it fall Of one nobody knows how much it goes out and of the other it is easy to control it.
By this I mean that There are many babies who, in comparison, drink more artificial milk from the bottle than they would drink if they were breastfeeding, simply because as it keeps falling, they keep swallowing. The body is not stupid and has mechanisms to try to compensate for an excess of food to avoid getting too fat, but if a child becomes accustomed to eating a lot in each shot, what is known colloquially as "getting his stomach big" may happen: the stomach It allows more and more food and the feeling of satiety takes longer to arrive.
A problem that can be learned at home
It is recommended to eat on demand, both parents and children, because in normal conditions a person eats, more or less, every 3 hours. That way it does about 5 meals a day, which is ideal (better many few than few many).
For schedules, by custom or for whatever reason, many adults continue to make three meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, forcing the body to eat more in each sitting, making less digestion (each digestion consumes calories) and being less active after each meal (the body asks for rest to devote to digesting everything that has entered).
If children have parents who eat "few many", they will end up doing the same as them, following incorrect eating habits that can help them become overweight. If also the food they eat is not balanced enough, if it is very caloric, because they arrive at meals so hungry that they get very hot (if you make food hungry, you prepare meals that get more fat than if you prepare it while being satiated ) the problem is served, because besides eating a few times and eating a lot, what they eat makes you more fat.
And if to finish off they are to eat fast, I don't even tell you. One of the recommendations for a balanced diet is to eat slowly, because 20 minutes after eating, the feeling of satiety begins to appear.
If in those 20 minutes a child has eaten little the chances of not being filled are much higher than if in those 20 minutes he has already eaten practically everything, because satiety will come, simply, when he has really satiated.
The scale does not lie
The fact that a child eats a lot does not have to be an indicator of problems. Now, if as we have said, the scale is telling us that there is overweight or obesity, yes something must be done because that child simply He is eating more than he needs.
There are cases in which the parents insist on affirming that their child does not eat so much, that it has always been that way, that it is his constitution, etc. Some reason may have, because about 5% of children with obesity are as a cause of some syndrome, a hormonal problem or a lesion in the nervous system, however the remaining 95% is simply because they eat more calories than you spend.
Not everything is lost
The good thing is that once the problem is recognized (by pediatricians, but above all by parents and children), children who eat too much can start eating a little less and gain less weight if measures are taken when respect.
You can change habits, such as reorder meals in the day, the subject of television can be controlled when eating (there are children who eat more if they have TV in front, and others who instead eat less), it can be controlled what is bought in the supermarket, starting to get healthier food in the car and the family can start to be more active, doing more sports all, accelerating the basal metabolism of the child and burning, therefore more calories.
We will talk about all this in future entries of our Special Infant Feeding. Do not miss it.
