No more rice cereal - bring on the hot salsa
By
on
October 12th, 2005
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An interesting article today from AP talks about eating habits in young children. What they are saying is definitely different from what you hear at the pediatrician's office or read in the most popular baby books.. Let me just say that you should not believe everything you read but what they are saying makes sense and is definitely worth a thought or two. The article talks about the "guidelines" pediatricians give all parents and that we should expose our young kids to more normal food early on in their life. Article says, " Parents have lost touch with the notion that these charts are guides, not rules". And, "That's right, rice cereal may not be the best first food. Peanut butter doesn't have to wait until after the first birthday. Offering fruits before vegetables won't breed a sweet tooth. And strong spices? Bring 'em on. "
We are told to start with rice cereal at 6 months or so, continue with veggies and fruits, and then introduce pasta and meat. That's what we did and it worked just fine. But the article says there is "not much evidence to support to any particular way of doing things." That means introducing more real food at an early stage and even some spicy food could be a good idea. All done with some common sense in mind. This makes good sense to me but I was a bit too clueless and afraid to try anything like this. I was/am a beginning parent and as such you rely much on advice from books, pediatricians, parents, and friends. But the problem is that everyone is doing the same thing. The guidelines are definitely taken as rules and people don't want to deviate too much.
What the doctors and researchers are saying is that young kids can start eating "real food" much earlier. Food that parents are eating instead of canned food/rice cereal. I'm aware of parents that do this but most are certainly afraid of going against the guidelines. And giving a baby a bit of spicy food? You must be kidding! Call children services immediately! Children in other countries are often exposed to normal food at an earlier stage. From the article, " Parents elsewhere in the world certainly take a more freewheeling approach, often starting babies on heartier, more flavorful fare — from meats in African countries to fish and radishes in Japan and artichokes and tomatoes in France."
We all know that the eating habits in US is a complete disaster. What's the percentage of obese people now? 35%? 40 %? 45 %? It's a huge number and it's not getting any better. Here in Sweden people eat lots of healthy food but our trend is definitely toward more fat and unhealthy people since we are consuming more fast food and exercising less. But we are light years from the US levels. Especially among kids. Think about what the word "obese" means. It's not a "Hector" (sorry MD but you are too funny). It does not mean you got 5 lbs. extra around your belly. The definitions is "extremely fat, very overweight". That is a lot of extra weight. We all want our children to grow up and become healthy happy kids (at least I do) Perhaps it would be worth trying something slightly different to improve the life quality of our kids in the future? From the article, " As research increasingly suggests a child's first experiences with food shape later eating habits, doctors say battling obesity and improving the American diet may mean debunking the myths and broadening babies' palates."
One of the doctors in the article even says that rice cereal and other grains might be among the worst foods you can give your child. He says, " These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity". I'm not sure how much truth there is to this but look around, does it look like our current eating habits are working well? I'm especially worried about all the overweight younger kids I see today. I've always been lean but I don't care if my son is not. But when I see a 7 year old that weighs 40 lbs. too much carrying nothing but pizza and ice cream in the grocery store, then I get worried.
If you have a history of severe food allergies in your family you should of course be more careful. But most of us don't. The article has an interesting view on this. " Food allergy fears get some of the blame for the bland approach. For decades doctors have said the best way to prevent allergies is to limit infants to bland foods, avoiding seasonings, citrus, nuts and certain seafood. But Butte's (a pediatrics professor, my note) review found no evidence that children without family histories of food allergies benefit from this. Others suspect avoiding certain foods or eating bland diets actually could make allergies more likely. Some exposure might be a good thing.
Regardless if this article is on the right track or not it's clear that the eating habits we are practicing today are extremely poor. There are many that eat relatively healthy and exercise but I get so frustrated seeing bad habits being carried over to kids. The young kids don't know any better, they have their parents as role models. We could do a much better job in giving our kids some good eating habits from an early age and hope that they grow up to be happy and healthy.
Now excuse me, I'm going to have a few beers with my son.
Hey AD,
I love our kid’s pediatrician here in NY. Maybe it’s because he’s French but he always reassures me that most American parents overthink everything. His philosophy on feeding kids is that you don’t have to feed them specific foods in a specific order when they start eating solids. His approach is to let infants try the same foods that you eat during meals (obviously in moderation.) But let them get used to eating the same foods that you’re having. Sure, you need to be smart about it. No candy or sugar. And keep a close eye on dairy. But otherwise I love his laissez-faire approach. Makes so much more sense intuitively.
Amen!
Both our girls are great eaters and while some studies show part of that may be genitic, I have to believe that a good deal of it is that they eat pretty much everything we do. Baby food for them was just left overs blended up in the food processor. Now they love Broccoli, asparagus, salmon, in fact I can’t think of anything they don’t like.
Soda. they can’t stand the bubbles.
No complaining there.
And I don’t know if you’re joking about the beer with your son, but I’ve got no problem letting our 4 year old have a little wine with dinner.
You ever read articles like this and think “Well, duh!” I mean if the food you are eating is nutritious and well balanced why would you want your baby to eat anything else? And if it’s not… why are you eating it? The only think I’d be extra careful about is foods that have a potential for food poisoning - raw fish, eggs and such. And honey. Past that - smoosh up your food and feed it to baby!
we fed our kimchi the other day. granted, she didn’t like it, but she also ate about half of the other little korean delicacies that they bring you at good korean restaurants.
we’re throwing the rice cereal out tonight!
My hubby, Keen, was just telling me about this article. (He read it off of Yahoo.) Our son never liked rice cereal or any of the cereals so I pretty much skipped it and went right to veggies and meat. He loves fruit of course, so now I just mix fruit in with cereal to get him to eat it.
Of course, we’re right at the beginning of the feeding the baby cycle so I’m still learning. But I was eating mashed potatoes the other day and was so tempted to give him some!
AD,
Interesting article and post. 2 things that bothered me about it:
1.A child’s first experience with food shape later eating habits….Idisagree witht is. It should be more like…A child’s first experience with their parent’s eating habits. A child will imitate their parents most of the time. If the parent eats will so will the child.
2. The problem with spicy foods or “mixed ingredients” food is that if a child should have a reaction, ie: allergies, hives, breathing problems, explosive shits etc. the parents may be able to identify the actual cause of the problem if each individual ingredient wa introduced to the child separetley. Giving child salsa (yummy) that contain may ingredients may cause the child a reaction. Thus preventing the parents from ever giving the child any of the ingredients in salsa as opposed to say maybe onions which was the real cause of the childs probem. And seriously what parent wants to change explosive shit diapers without knowing the casue.
I can just imagine a caveman sitting around his hearth munching on a big emu leg or something, his wife rummaging through clay pots and pans, skin bags etc.
“URRRGGH Olga what you doing” (see caveladies where called olga!)
“Me can’t find Rice Cereal, baby go hungry”
As humans we have been around for hundreds and thousands of years and we ate what our parents are. There is such a thing as over analysis.
ditto C.M.B.
show of hands, who hasn’t prechewed some food to make instant baby food?
First of all, rice cereal makes the kids constipated, so I have NO IDEA why any pediatrician would recommend it. Secondly, the order of the foods doesn’t matter. What matters is the parents’ eating habits. Tod-lar just eats what we eat. In fact, the kid LOVES spicy food (must be the Latin in him). We have to get him his own salsa when we eat Mexican because he still double-dips.
Oh, and he loves Beeritas: half a lime, a shot of tequila, and a bottle of Pacifico, stirred. Then again, who wouldn’t love a Beerita?
I have to say that our experience of this with the first kid was just totally different from the second kid. With our daughter, we did everything ‘right’–start with cereal, move up to veggies, then fruits, then meats, and wait a year for peanut butter. But our son not only saw us eating real food & wanted to eat it–he saw his big sister eating it too. And he had to have it. And you know what? Right now, he’s a much more adventurous eater than she is.
My son is three months old, he’s moving his tongue around a lot and I thought - he’s ready for food. I wasn’t following the age guideline - but I thought I’d do the starting foods guideline. So I started him with rice cereal just yesterday. The boy ate it up without a fuss and almost no spit up. The thing with rice cereal is, I’m worried about the constipation factor. After reading all this stuff and the article though - I think we may try some veggies in a few days. I can always thin it down with some water or breast milk if he’s not ready for the thickness. I was planning on doing rice cereal for a couple weeks, then adding in veggies and fruit - but I don’t see the harm of introducing veggies at least early. As long as he’s interested and eatting it right? I’m a first time parent (obviously) but I’m pretty open to new suggestions. So I like the idea of introducing more real food. I think I’ll stick with veggies to start though. Even though fruit is good for you, it does have a lot of sugar in it too. Once I’ve introduced some veggies though - I have no problem going to blender left overs!
Ok, I\’m not in complete agreement with this, but I see your point. Thanks for sharing.
May 28th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
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