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by Samantha Brody, N.D.
Keeping Children Healthy
Vitamins are important for growing children. The vitamins and minerals in the foods children eat today could determine their lifelong health. Growing children need a highly nutritious diet to meet the increased requirements for their growth and development. They should eat foods that are rich in protein, vitamins and minerals in proportion to the calories that these foods provide. Unfortunately, many children have taste preferences that lead them to diets high in empty calories and refined foods.
Here are some tips for helping your children develop good eating habits:
• Set a good example.
• Avoid having junk food or sweets in your home.
• Teach children to appreciate a variety of foods.
• Don’t let other activities interrupt mealtime.
• Allow children to have fun in the kitchen by letting them help prepare food.
• Have a shelf in the cupboard and refrigerator that your child can reach. Stock these shelves with nutritious foods so your child can choose his or her own healthy snack.
Fortunately, with just a few simple changes in diet and daily routines you can help children grow up strong and also dramatically boost your child’s immunity.
Children bring colds home from school and it is hard for them to avoid getting sick during the fall and winter months. It is normal for children, whose immune systems aren’t fully developed, to get as many as eight to 10 colds a year (about twice as many as adults). Most of children’s colds start at back-to-school time and continue through the winter months. According to the Centers for Disease Control, children and teenagers aged five to 17 miss an average of five days of school annually due to colds.
Children’s colds aren’t necessarily a sign of poor health and getting sick can be part of a child’s normal process of building resistance to disease. What’s important is not whether a child gets sick but how quickly he recovers.
There are over 200 different cold viruses. These viruses are spread primarily through direct hand-to-hand contact or indirect contact, for example, when a child touches an infected surface like a toy or a doorknob and then puts his/her hand to their eyes, nose or mouth. Viruses may be transmitted also through sneezing or coughing. Although it is impossible to prevent your family from getting sick,?there are ways to discourage a cold before it starts and to speed recovery time if?your child does get sick. Here is a list of recommendations:
Nutrition Matters
Not only do the foods we eat in childhood have a lasting effect on development but a healthy diet also helps protect against illness.
Exercise
Thirty minutes a day of any moderate-intensity activity like raking leaves or?playing catch should be enough to help immune function and overall health.
Sleep Tight
Get a good night’s sleep. A tired child is more likely to become run-down and less resistant to illness. Children should go to bed early enough so they wake up without the help of a parent or an alarm clock and have plenty of time to get ready for school.
Play Outside
Close quarters and poorly ventilated, overheated rooms cause colds to spread. Just make sure they bundle up and wear a hat when they go outside in the cold weather.
Wash Your Hands
Simple but true, people who wash their hands with soap and water frequently throughout the day are one-third less likely to catch a cold, according to a study at Purdue University’s Calumet Riley Child Care Center. An important caveat, however, is to avoid soaps that contain antibacterial agents. Although it may seem like a good idea to kill all germs and bacteria, the detrimental effects of these cleaners may very well outweigh their benefits. First, there are many types of bacteria that play an important role in normal human physiology. Another perhaps more important concern is that of “superbugs.” It is well known that bacteria mutate and become resistant to antibacterial agents. A study out of Tufts University showed that E.coli bacteria did indeed develop a resistance to Triclosan, one of the more common antibacterial found in commercial soaps.
Take Your Vitamins
Vitamins, minerals and herbs can help maintain your child’s healthy immune system. These are important to keep on hand for the cold season:
Echinacea is one of the most well-known and researched herbs. It is popular for its ability to stimulate the immune system. If you feel your children are running low on their resources and there is a lot of sneezing, coughing and sniffling at school, that is the time for echinacea. There are a number of excellent echinacea products specifically formulated for children, including echinacea-enhanced vitamins, fruit-flavored chewable tablets, gummy bears and ice pops.
Zinc is believed to reduce the incidence and severity of colds. Zinc lozenges may reduce the time a child is sick with a cold and may provide soothing support for scratchy little throats.
Vitamin C is one of the most widely studied vitamins. It is an immune system enhancer and helps to ward off colds. One of the best forms of vitamin C is Ester-C. It is natural, easy on little tummies, super-absorbable and backed by science.
Did You Know?
Ten Common Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies in Children
1. Two out of three children don’t get the calcium they need.
2. One-third are deficient in iron.
3. About 50 percent lack sufficient zinc.
4. Over 90 percent are deficient in magnesium.
5. One in six lack vitamin A.
6. Nearly half are seriously deficient in vitamin C.
7. Nearly one-third are deficient in vitamin B-6.
8. One in seven are deficient in vitamin B-12.
9. One in five are deficient in folate.
10. Nearly three million children between the ages of six and 17 have high blood pressure.
Source: Vitamin Supplement Journal
Children Can’t Do Without Calcium
Calcium is the most abundant mineral in a child’s body. The major function of calcium is to work with phosphorus to build and maintain strong bones and teeth. Because about 45 percent of a person’s bone mass is formed during the childhood years, calcium is a mineral children can’t do without.
Good nutrition is essential to meeting the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance for calcium. Foods that are high in calcium include milk and dairy foods, canned fish (salmon and sardines) with bones, oysters, broccoli and tofu.
Today milk, the traditional way to give children the calcium they need, is being cut from many children’s diets by doctors who advise parents to go lightly on dairy products. The reason they give is that many children have a subclinical allergy to milk, where their digestive system can’t properly digest milk proteins. Over time these allergic reactions to milk can change the child’s immune system, resulting in more ear infections and colds. Milk also contains the hormones and antibodies that are fed to the cows and could compromise a child’s developing immune system, they say.
Vitamin and mineral-fortified soy milk is an alternative to cow’s milk, as is orange juice with calcium added, but it isn’t easy for children to get enough calcium from that diet.
The best way to ensure your children are getting an adequate amount of calcium, so important to their growth and development, is to give them a calcium supplement every day.
Optimal Calcium Intake
Children 1 to 5 years 800 mg
Children 6 to 10 years 800–1200 mg
Ages 11 to 24 years 1200–1500 mg
Source: The National Institutes of Health
Caring for Ear Infections
Earaches account for more visits to the pediatrician than any other condition and they are the most common complaint of childhood. Earaches are an infection of the middle ear. The middle ear is connected to the nose and throat by the Eustachian tube and for this reason infections in the throat can easily spread to the middle ear—particularly in young children.
When a child has an earache you want to soothe and relieve the pain. Give him/her loving attention in a calm and quiet environment. Rest is important for the body to heal. Your child can eat a normal diet but avoid dairy products and refined sugars since dairy products have been shown to be a common allergen in kids with recurring earaches and sugar is thought to slow down white blood cells and allow infections to spread more rapidly.
More than 110 million antibiotic prescriptions are written each year and earaches are the number one reason they are prescribed to children. Their use in the?initial treatment of ear infections is being questioned by more and more pediatricians. In parts of Europe, doctors wait two or three days before prescribing antibiotics for ear infections, and 80 to 90 percent of these cases clear up on their own by that time. There is also a growing concern about the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria, so it makes sense to avoid antibiotics if possible.
Antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria in a child’s system. If you do have to use antibiotics, you can replace the good, immune-supporting bacteria that antibiotics take away by giving your children acidophilus.
I recommend Nutrition Now’s Children’s PB 8 Pro-Biotic Acidophilus and Rhino Acidophilus, which are specifically formulated for kids. Children’s PB 8 helps maintain healthy flora in children ages one to four. (The powder mixes well with food or juice.) Children ages four to teen can take great-tasting chewable Rhino Acidophilus tablets.
Samantha Brody, N.D. is a licensed naturopathic physician in the states of Oregon and Washington.
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