Question

i don't need a google answer please! i need it from any nutrition book

What are necessary energy and nutrient requirements essential for normal growth and development during infancy, childhood and adolescence?

Answer 1

The preterm infants have less ability of digestion and absorption and renal function. The immature liver in preterm infants cannot produce adequate metabolic enzymes and iron stores. These immature tiny infants require special feeding. The American Academy of pediatrics suggest normal breast feeding for preterm and high risk infants. The breast milk helps low birth weight infants along with human milk fortifier.

The breast milk produced by preterm infant mothers provides high energy, carbohydrates, protein and fats to meet the nutritional requirements of preterm infants. Tube feeding and peripheral vein feeding are used in special cases of infants.Bottle feeding or nursing can be done successfully with care and support in immature infants. Usually the sucking reflex is achieved at 32 weeks of gestation.

Term infants are mature infants who have finely developed body systems and are able to grow rapidly. The weight gain in term infants is about 168gms per week during the first 6 months. The feeding thorough breast milk builds up the bondage and relationship between parent and child. These infants are given iron fortified solid foods along with breast milk from 6^th month onwards. Thus, the nutrition demands are different in term infants compared to preterm infants who need special care

Age is the basic criterion to introduce solid foods to infants. The solid foods are recommended at the age of six months and till the age of six months breast milk is the only food provided to infants. The development of motor skills like keeping the head upright and controlled movement of the tongue indicates the readiness of infant for solid foods. Hunger and satiety also provide the feeding cues for providing the solid foods.

Toddlers are the children of age 1 to 3 years. Toddlers are very active and learn new skills quickly. These children have interest in running and exploring new things. Parents are of concern of slow and less eating of toddlers and their reduced appetite. The food preferences are grow and change by frequency of food use and pleasant surroundings.

Sweets are also includes in the diet but are reserved only for special occasions. The energy and protein needs are high per kilogram of body weight. The increased physical activity, growing muscle mass and bone structure and body tissues require sufficient dietary proteins, minerals and vitamins. Daily intake of 19gm of fiber is suggested to prevent constipation. Preschool aged children are of 3 to 5 years old and during this period rapid spurt in physical growth and appetite is observed.

The food habits are influenced by attitude, social and emotional experiences and may result in food jags or binge eating of a specific food for few days. Group eating should be encouraged in preschool whereby children learn to eat variety of foods and can form new social relationships. Care is often taken to provide adequate nutri-dense food for preschool children.

School aged children are five to twelve years old and exhibit slow and irregular growth rate during early school years. This results due to overall body changes. Rapid growth is observed a year or two prior to adolescence as a last lull before storm. This is prominent with development of girls who bypass boys during the later part of this period.

The mental and social maturity, independence from parental patterns and self food preferences influence the nutritional status in these children. Most of the children lack balanced diets due to negative influences such as television and other electronic gadgets. Therefore, the care should be taken to provide adequate nutrition and parent support for school aged children.

Adolescence includes children of age 12 to 18 years old. Adolescence accompanies with final growth spurt of childhood due to onset of puberty. Rapid growth is observed in increased body size and development of sex characteristics by the influence of the hormones. Boys and girls have different growth rates and change. Girls improve to store more subcutaneous fats in abdominal area. The pelvis becomes wide for preparing the self for child bearing in future. This helps to increase the size of hips and becomes the cause of anxiety in girls with figure conscious.

Physical growth of boys is correlated with increased muscle mass and long bones. The growth spurt is slow in boys than girls but still boys surpass girls in height and weight. The sexual maturity should occur at a specific age and the timing may cause risk of a chronic disease. The usual eating pattern of teenagers is influenced by rapid growth, self conscious and peer pressure. Most often the teenagers try to skip lunch than breakfast and consume snacks at fast food restaurants. The unwanted habits like alcohol abuse and smoking during teenage affect the nutritional status.

Boys usually have better nutrition than girls. Large appetite and volume of food taken should ensure the adequacy of nutrients. Figure conscious, social pressures and poor food habits make girls to restrict the food and have poor nutrition. Most of the girls follow the self imposed crash diets for weight loss and self starvation or complex eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa make them undernourished. Parents and teachers should help the teenagers to overcome poor habits and disordered eating to maintain adequate nutrition, normal weight and overall health.