Those Who Feed Us: Insights From Child Feeding Practices
Originally published on the HPHR website.
*All those featured in the video provided written consent for participation.
For this post, I was interested to learn about first-hand experiences in child feeding practices. I focused on children between two to ten years. I reached out to mothers who voluntarily and with consent agreed to share their experiences with me about how they feed their children.
According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is every child’s right to be fed nutritious food. And as I highlighted in my blog on adolescent health, children experience rapid growth during childhood and adolescence, and need good quality diets for growth, more than any other stage of life.
In this part 1 of the blog, I am sharing my conversation as a vlog. In part 2, I will dig deeper into what I observed from my interaction with parents/guardians* and what the research says.
I am grateful to the parents/guardians who agreed to share their experiences.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is very clear on the fact that every child has the right to be fed nutritious food. All parents wish to ensure their child receives healthy, safe, and nutritious food. Unfortunately, many children are unable to access adequate food. We lose 2.7 million young lives annually due to undernutrition. Increases in food prices, breast-milk substitutes, lack of awareness, and mothers’ poor nutritional status continue to make inadequate child feeding a pressing issue.
What are some child-feeding best practices?
Exclusive breastfeeding: The first food that a child receives (and should receive) is the mother’s milk. The World Health Organisation has very clear guidelines that recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and gradual introduction to food thereafter. Yet only 44% of infants up to the age of 6 months were exclusively breastfed from 2015 to 2020.
Food education: One thing that came across very strongly in conversation with parents was educating children about food. This ranged from including children in the cooking process, grocery trips, and food gardening to having conversations about food waste. It is important to include the topic of food in children’s activities. Parents also sought information and advice for themselves from pediatricians, books, and online resources to learn the dos and don’ts of child feeding practices.
Dietary diversity: Many parents were of the view that children are interested to try a variety of food and it is important to provide them with a diversity of food options, within their geographic reach and budget. This also included introducing potentially allergy-causing food products to children. According to one research study, introducing allergens in children’s diets can potentially reduce the chances of acquiring food allergies in the future.
Nutrition and aesthetics: Though the priority in selecting food to feed children is largely driven by foods’ nutritional value, the look, feel, and presentation of food equally matters. Many parents shared that their child was attracted to colorful food products and would try vegetables and fruits because of that.
What are some child-feeding challenges?
Parents expressed many challenges they faced in feeding their children. These challenges ranged from personal to larger systemic issues.
Food promotions and packaging: Many parents who took their children grocery shopping complained about the wide availability of junk food options. Sometimes kids would throw tantrums demanding a certain junk food item.
Monetary: Healthy food is expensive. The more certifications a food product claims to have — such as organic, grass-fed, and chemical-free — the higher its price. This makes it difficult for parents to purchase the healthiest and safest food options for their children.
“Why is it so expensive to eat well? Getting organic certification, you need to go through so many processes. It is almost like people are being penalized for producing something organically. It should be the other way round.” (Joani Taylor, France, Parent of a 5-year-old)
Children are picky and unpredictable: Children just being introduced to food are unable to develop a set pattern. Sometimes they would like a food item, but the next day they may show disgust towards it. Hence, feeding children needs to be a co-led thing between the child and the parent. Parents cannot force upon a child what to eat, and children need to be exposed to different tastes and textures, especially for fruits and vegetables, so they grow comfortable consuming them.
Personal Energy: Feeding a child and deciding what to feed them is an energy-consuming task. It is often mothers who take on the role of preparing and serving meals in households. It gets very difficult for working mothers, especially, to provide home-cooked meals to their children all the time.
Way Forward
It takes a village to raise a child, and an entire food system to feed a child. It is important that food systems be child friendly. Parents should not have to think twice about purchasing fruits and vegetables for their children due to monetary and food safety concerns.
Similarly, with increasing numbers of mothers going into the workforce, and with increasing numbers of children going to daycare, it is important to ensure that such caretaking places are bound by law to adhere to strict food regulations for children and serve them with healthy food options.
Feeding a child is a basis for their interaction with food. Children grow up and develop their independent relationship with food. It is important that parents and guardians teach children cooking skills, make them aware of where food comes from, and not waste it.
