How to provide the child's body with a sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals, and at the same time not overfeed the baby? How much should your child eat?

At some point, almost all children, to one degree or another, refuse to eat for a short while. It may be related to illness bad mood, the body's need for a small unloading.

Sometimes the assessment of “bad eating” is purely subjective and parents simply do not have a very good idea of ​​how much their child should actually eat according to age norms.

When should a decrease in appetite in a child cause real anxiety of parents and the need to see a doctor? Let's try to figure it out.

What should a child eat?

Often, parents whose children have gone beyond infancy believe that now the child can eat at the common table, and do not make a difference in preparing meals for adult family members and for the baby.

Meanwhile, the child's body is still fragile enough to overload it with adult food. Some products of the adult table are completely dangerous for the child, and can cause serious digestive problems up to chronic diseases.

What should be included in the diet of a child from 1 to 5 years?

• From dairy products, kefirs, yogurts, cottage cheese can be given daily. Children after three years can be introduced into the diet of whole cow's milk. It is advisable to choose product lines designed specifically for children (Agusha, Tyoma, Rastishka)

• It is better not to give sour cream and cream in its pure form, but you can use them in small quantities as a dressing for salads or cottage cheese
• Cheeses, especially hard varieties, can be given in very limited quantities, preferably after three years
• From meat, you can give chicken, lean beef, rabbit. It is better to give meat in the form of minced meat and products from it: meatballs, cutlets, rolls
• If you give boiled meat, check that there are no bone fragments in it, and that the fibers are soft and well cooked
• Fish should be given at least twice a week, only fillet, deboned, boiled or stewed
• Do not give fatty fish (salmon, salmon, halibut, sturgeon), absolutely do not give caviar, as it is the strongest allergen
• Do not give smoked and fried meat and fish, including sausages, grilled chicken, carbonade and the like

• Pork, lamb, ducks and geese should be excluded from the child's diet. Boiled sausages and sausages can be given occasionally and only of very high quality
• Eggs can be given 2-3 times a week as an omelette or hard boiled
• Be sure to include different cereals and bread in the child's diet every day. small quantities coarse grinding
• Sugar must be used very carefully. Up to three years, they can slightly sweeten the drink. Honey and chocolate are contraindicated for children under three years old.
• Children preschool age should also consume sweets in limited quantities
• It is advisable to exclude from the diet store-bought desserts with a long shelf life and a lot of unnatural food additives (rolls, cookies, croissants, cakes, other confectionery)
• As a dessert, you can give products specially designed for baby food trusted manufacturers (Heinz, Lyubyatovo, Gerber, Bebi, Hipp) as well as special products for children sold in pharmacies (hematogen, muesli bars, sugar-free lollipops)

• Every day, vegetables, legumes, fruits in any form must be present in the diet: raw in salads and on a grater, as part of the first and second courses, compotes, cocktails, mashed potatoes)
• It's best to avoid exotics and feed only what grows in your area.
• You should not abuse jelly, as they have a high content of starch, and, on the contrary, there are less nutrients than in compotes and decoctions
• To strengthen the teeth, it is important to give the child “solid” foods daily: crackers, apples and pears, carrots.
• The most high-calorie food the child should take at lunch. Easiest meal of the day is before bed.

How much should a child eat?

How to understand that the child does not eat anything?

• You can talk about the real malnutrition of a child when his appetite is reduced for several months. In this case, the balanced intake of products vital for the full development of the child and maintaining immunity at the proper level is disrupted.
• Gradually, malnutrition leads to reduced muscle mass, reduced immunity, frequent colds, increased fatigue, poor grades and weak physical development. Ultimately, malnutrition leads to very serious health problems for the child.
• Some parents believe that the main thing is to replenish the volume of food consumed, and allow the child to eat only what he enjoys eating, even if this food is harmful.
• Such conclusions are erroneous, because with a general deficiency of useful vitamins and trace elements, body weight gain occurs, which only aggravates the health of the child.

Why is the child not eating well? What to do?

• In the absence of a strict regimen, the child may often refuse to eat, because his body is not used to producing a feeling of hunger, especially if the child is allowed to have a small snack at any time with a cookie, an apple, or a couple of spoons of soup from his father's plate
• Make sure you have the correct idea of ​​how much your child should eat per meal. Talk to your pediatrician about calorie intake for your child's age.
• Protracted stress can be the cause of a prolonged decrease in appetite. If there is a dysfunctional situation in the family or in the recent past there have been events that could traumatize the child's psyche, contact a specialist to establish the exact reasons
• Often, children have a delayed reaction: at the time of the traumatic event, they look calm, but after a certain period of time (sometimes quite a long time) they begin to mope for no apparent reason.
• Decreased appetite may be caused by the presence of a latent chronic disease. Consult a pediatrician to undergo a full examination and exclude the presence of the disease from the list of causes

What tests and examinations should be done to find out the cause of loss of appetite?

1. Blood test for vitamin and mineral composition
2. General analysis of blood and urine
3. Fecal analysis for helminth eggs and Giardia cysts
4. Ultrasound of the abdominal organs
5. FGS (fibrogastroscopy)
6. Examination by a gastroenterologist, neurologist, psychologist and endocrinologist

If the examination by specialists did not reveal any deviations in the health and psyche of the child, you must independently take measures to restore your child's appetite.

• Vegetables in the children's diet can be replaced with cereals, whole grain breads and fruits
• If your child refuses meat, fish, or certain vegetables, substitute one for another.
• The child may not like the consistency or features of the recipe for a certain dish. Try cooking something new with familiar foods to keep him interested.
• Often children refuse food only because of their appearance, for example, from boiled chicken yolk. It is important to reinforce the persuasion with your own example, to show how all members of your family, including the cat, love this product. This approach works in most cases.
• Don't forget that kids are big conservatives. In order for the child to agree to change his mind about the product, he must be offered to try from 8 to 15 times
• Cook food with your child, this will increase the value of the dish in the eyes of the baby and cause a desire to try it

• Eating should be enjoyable. Do not scold the child at the table, do not force him to eat - this can discourage appetite even more
• Offer the child a "false choice": instead of the question "Will you eat or not?" ask "Will you have porridge, mashed potatoes or pasta?" This is a method popular with child psychologists that does not make it possible to refuse food completely.
• Eat dinner, lunch and breakfast with the whole family whenever possible. For a child, the example of adults who are happy to chew their mother's cutlets will be very contagious.
• Do not let your child make small forays to the refrigerator in between meals. Spontaneous snacking reduces appetite
• Don't let your child sit in front of the TV while eating. It is a big mistake when parents allow their child to do anything and sit in front of a plate for an hour until he eats everything.
• The meal should last no more than 20 minutes, after which the food is removed from the table until the next meal.
• Active outdoor games, sports and walks on fresh air markedly increase appetite. Plan the daily routine so that before each meal the child walks and moves actively

Folk remedies used if the child began to eat less

• A decoction or compote of wild rose, chokeberry, sea buckthorn and barberry increases appetite well and is also very pleasant in taste, unlike medicines. You can give your child a cup of this decoction half an hour before each meal.
• Fresh (in winter - freshly frozen and pre-thawed) garden berries: raspberries, currants, cherries are rich in fruit acids that increase appetite. Give your child a few berries half an hour before meals.
• A small apple or carrot (you can do both together) 20-30 minutes before meals will increase the child's appetite
• Mint or fennel tea, which improves digestion and metabolism, can be given between meals as a drink to improve appetite

• Do not force your child to eat. Food is well absorbed if the child is really hungry.
  Teach your child to chew food thoroughly, and not to swallow in a hurry
• The first meal should be no earlier than 20-30 minutes after waking up, as the body needs time to "wake up"
• Do not feed a child if he is excited, overwhelmed with emotions, overwhelmed, or, on the contrary, overwhelmed with joy.
• Meat is better to give only at lunch.
• You can sometimes arrange fasting days and eat only vegetables and fruits
• Drinking water with food is harmful. It is better to drink water 20 minutes before a meal or half an hour after it.
• Do not let the child be distracted while eating and watch his posture at the table: incorrect seating compresses the digestive organs and makes it difficult for food to pass

Drugs that increase appetite in children

• Good for regaining appetite homeopathic remedies which can only be prescribed by a specialist. The advantage of homeopathic treatment is that taking drugs for a short time usually gives a long-term effect. However, it is necessary to strictly follow the prescriptions of the doctor, since the accuracy of the dosage is very important in homeopathy.
• Elkar- a drug for the correction of metabolic processes, improves metabolism and digestibility of food. For children, this drug is prescribed as an additive to tea, compotes, juices. Up to three years, the drug is taken strictly under medical supervision.
• Creon- normalizes the process of digestion, is prescribed for children with a decrease in appetite and insufficient weight gain. Available in capsules. For young children who are unable to swallow the capsule, it is recommended to pour the contents into food or drink.
• Vitamin complexes produced for children contain a full range of useful vitamins and microelements necessary for the child's body and help increase appetite

Natural vitamins to increase appetite in children

• Vitamin A v in kind found in carrots, eggs, milk, broccoli. With a deficiency of vitamin A, peeling of the skin appears, vision in the dark decreases, and infectious diseases often occur.
• B vitamins found in meat, cereals, nuts. The lack of B vitamins in the body leads to a decrease in appetite, increased excitability, fatigue, chronic fatigue, disorders in the heart
• Vitamin C found in almost all fruits, berries and most vegetables. With a lack of vitamin C, there is a serious decrease in immunity, bleeding gums may appear.
• Zinc, contained in meat, seafood, cereals, normalizes carbohydrate metabolism in the body. Zinc deficiency leads to overweight, distraction, reduced ability to concentrate shooting
• Magnesium important for energy production and lowering blood glucose. It occurs naturally in legumes, nuts, and grains. Magnesium deficiency affects the processes of carbohydrate metabolism in the body
• Vitamins and trace elements useful for increasing appetite contain dried fruits, prunes and dried apricots.
• very rich prebiotics(foods that improve digestion) bananas, beets, plums, zucchini and legumes

Video: The child began to eat badly. Help me to understand

Often parents are faced with the fact that the child does not eat well. This is beginning to worry adults, since good nutrition is the source of useful substances and essential vitamins. What is the basis poor appetite? Reluctance to eat or impossibility due to various disturbing factors?

Why did the child become malnourished?

The presence of diseases affects the ability of the crumbs to eat. Children born ahead of time, get tired faster, refuse to breastfeed and put on weight worse. It is recommended to supplement the babies additionally from a bottle or from a spoon in order to gain strength faster.

Oral problems (inflammation, teething, tongue tie) prevent the child from getting food. Flat nipple It can also cause inconvenience of sucking milk. A runny nose makes eating uncomfortable, as it becomes difficult to eat and breathe at the same time.

Violation of the mother's diet often leads to a change in the taste of milk, which is not always pleasant for the baby. As children get older, they may not be comfortable with the temperature of the food—too hot or too cold. Also, the presence of hard pieces is not to the liking of the baby, who does not know how to chew well. Eating habits play a significant role: someone cannot stand semolina porridge or the smell of stewed cabbage.

The reason in these cases is easy to identify, because the child wants to eat, but something is stopping him. Eliminating the causes contributes to the normalization of nutrition. Things are much more complicated with those who are able to eat, who are not bothered by anything, but have a poor appetite.

Viruses - assistants to poor appetite

The primary symptoms of diseases are just manifested by the fact that the child does not eat well. SARS, bacterial diseases always affect appetite. At this time, it is best to offer your baby plenty of fluids. It is desirable to feed the crumbs with what he wants: fruits, vegetables, do not impose unpleasant food on him.

Prolonged difficulties with appetite are sometimes caused by problems with the gastrointestinal tract, with nervous abnormalities, and with endocrine pathologies. If a child eats poorly and lags behind in weight gain, then this is an alarming sign that requires the intervention of pediatricians.

Somatic disease leads to fatigue and loss of appetite!

Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract cause a prolonged deterioration in appetite. Diseases such as gastritis, enterocolitis, liver disease - cause difficulties with meals. With allergies, lack of vitamins, diseases of cardio-vascular system appetite problems may occur. In these cases, you can not do without the help of doctors, because it is important to find the cause, and not just deal with the effect.

Causes of improper catering

If the baby is fed irrationally, inappropriate food, then the appetite decreases. The lack of a regimen, the predominance of fatty foods, sweets inhibit the feeling of hunger.

Forced feeding can cause a wrong attitude towards food, it should not be perceived as a punishment.

Not all babies like to eat from a spoon when weaning begins. Cutting teeth sometimes cause pain. After a year, children develop taste preferences, and they react with a refusal to food that they do not like.

The environment of the child, the emotional state

Psychogenic causes of decreased appetite can occur in dysfunctional families or where the child is overprotected. Sometimes a mother believes that love is manifested in the amount of food and literally feeds the child, which causes appetite disorders.

Advice to parents if the child is not eating well

Feeding frequency. No need to force the child to eat at any cost. Often the desire to be sure to feed the little one is not subject to logical explanations, but goes instinctively. When the indicators of height and weight correspond to the norms, you should not worry that the baby has not eaten enough. If this behavior is not one-time, then the daily routine, menu, portion size, physical activity crumbs.

Count the amount of food eaten per day. Up to one year, children normally eat up to 1200 grams of food, along with liquid. By the age of one and a half years, the mass of food reaches 1500 grams. Naturally petite children may eat less and this is absolutely normal for them.

Take vitamins. If the child does not eat well, then special vitamin complexes restore the lack of nutrients.

Taking medications. It is worth taking medicines only at the suggestion of a pediatrician if the child does not eat well due to somatic diseases. Preparations containing levocarnitine help to absorb energy, avoid weight loss.

Poor appetite in a newborn

As mentioned above, newborns do not eat well because of the difficulty in sucking milk, because of insufficient nutritional value of milk. In this case, you need to apply more often to the chest, if necessary, supplement with a mixture from a spoon. The mixture is selected with a pediatrician, where all parameters are taken into account.

The child does not eat well at 1 year

By the year, taste preferences appear, the texture of food, its temperature are important for the baby. Some children do not want to learn how to chew, so their parents go along with them and feed them too small food. It is important to start with soft foods that the child will learn to chew without difficulty, then you can offer more solid foods.

Poor appetite at 2 years old

If the baby does not eat well at 3 years

Three-year-olds go through a certain crisis, and often they do everything in defiance of their parents. Mode, calm environment, lack of frequent snacks and moderate physical activity will be helpful for nutrition.

1. Understand the reason. Force-feeding is not necessary, because there is always some reason behind a poor appetite. Probably the baby is sick or teething, or maybe the food has not cooled down and he is hot.
2. Count the amount of food. Well-fed children may refuse food because they are already full. Children's body very sensitive and the child always knows how much nutrients he needs.
3. Mode. Newborn babies are fed on demand, but then meals should be on schedule so that the food has time to be digested. It also builds discipline.
4. Lots of sweets. Sweets before meals affect appetite, it is better to change sweets for fruits or vegetables.
5. Cold or infection. When the body is fighting the disease, the child does not eat well. All because all forces are directed to recovery. Eating light food and drinking plenty of water will help to overcome the disease more easily.
6. Games while eating. The kid can simply play too much, using food instead of toys. In this case, you should strictly separate what you can have fun with and what you can’t.
7. Meals with family. From about 3 years old, the baby should eat with the family, learn good manners, instill the right eating habits.
8. Diverse food. Food should be different, mostly healthy. No need to feed the crumbs with chips and fast food. Diversity is ensured through healthy food.
9. Beautiful decoration. For a baby, it is important that the food is beautiful and bright. The plot of your favorite fairy tale, realized in food, will please the baby.
10. Patience. You should always be patient and calm about the whims of the child, not indulge them. Even if the baby refuses to eat, you do not need to force feed. Hungry - catch up at the next meal. The main thing is to exclude serious causes of poor appetite.

When a child does not eat well, you need to find out why he behaves this way. There are many reasons - from physiological to emotional. In serious situations, you should always consult a doctor so that the height and weight parameters do not differ much from the norm.

Poor appetite in a child in the summer is the exception rather than the rule, because movement and fresh air do their job. However, in hot weather, children may actually eat less than usual. Is it so important to monitor the amount of food eaten, says a pediatrician with 40 years of experience, Yuri Ivanovich Staroverov.

The first reason for poor appetite: I eat what I want

In the morning the phone rings in the clinic. An anxious female voice says: “My boy refuses to eat. And this is not the first time. What to do?". To begin with, it is always a good idea to find out what the lack of appetite is manifested in. It often turns out that the child refuses some of the foods, but willingly eats others. For example, defiantly spits out porridge and demands sweet fruits. If they go towards him, the next time the situation repeats itself. It's obvious that selective appetite problem has nothing to do with appetite per se. The problem is pedagogical: a usurper and an egoist are growing in the family.

But what to do anyway? It is important that the child in the family feel like an equal among equals, and not a darling of fate and the center of civilization. He does not want to eat porridge - breakfast is over, lunch is in 4 hours. Don't eat soup at lunch - wait until dinner. At the same time, it is very important that during the breaks between meals the food does not come into contact with the child’s eyes, so that he does not have the opportunity to eat on his own and that there is no talk about food in his presence.

Many object: “So he won’t eat like that for the whole day.” Nothing wrong. Nature has created man in such a way that he can quite painlessly go without food (but not without drinking) for several days. Well, things usually don’t come to this, provided, of course, that mom and grandmother have enough patience. And not enough, well, it's your child ...

The formation of eating habits in a child largely depends on the example of adults. It is difficult to demand thoughtful food intake from the baby if dad usually snacks on sandwiches on the go, and the family never gathers at the dinner table.

Reason two: snacking

Another common variant of falsely reduced appetite is associated with snacking between meals. The child did not eat well at breakfast, an hour later he is offered a sandwich, an hour later he eats yogurt, and at lunch he does not want to eat again. Or a schoolboy returns home when the adults are still at work. He takes it out of the fridge and eats a piece of sausage. Mom comes back, offers him food, but he has no appetite.

If you want your child to have an appetite, you should not feed him between meals.

The third reason for the lack of appetite: individual development

As you know, children are very different, and their food needs are also different. One child is restless, rushes like a top, jumps endlessly, climbs everywhere. The other is calm, sedentary, prefers quiet games, likes to listen when books are read to him. The first, as a rule, is thin, regardless of what and how much he eats - everything burns in his energy furnace. The second is usually well fed, although it may eat less than the first. The nutritional needs of children largely depend on the costs of physical activity, growth, heat production, and infection control. It got colder outside - the child began to eat better; growth accelerates during puberty - appetite improves; ran on the street - "worked up an appetite."

Along with differences in energy needs, each child has its own digestion capabilities (splitting and absorption of food), its own metabolic rate. And depending on this, the need for food in children of the same age can also vary significantly.

The measure of adequacy is not the amount of food he absorbs, but the level of his development.: growth rates, fatness, timeliness of the appearance of new skills in him.

Often they go to the doctor not because the child does not eat well, but due to the fact that: "I feed him, I feed him, but his ribs stick out anyway." And sometimes it is extremely difficult to convince a mother (and especially a grandmother) that this is how it should be, that this is normal.

And it should be so because children grow unevenly. Up to 3 years, the so-called "period of first fullness" continues, when weight gain is somewhat ahead of growth rates. But after 3-4 years, the stretching period begins (the so-called "half-height growth spurt"). The child accelerates in growth, and it seems that he is losing weight. And in the first grade, most children go thin, slender.

“Most, but not all,” you say, and you will be right. Yes, indeed, children, among other things, differ among themselves and in their physique. Some are narrow with an elongated cylindrical chest, with long arms and legs and with a small amount of adipose tissue - asthenics. Others with a broad chest, strong bones, well-developed muscles and a tendency to increased fat deposition. Both are perfectly normal. But why such differences? Maybe it's the food? Everything is much easier. Look at yourself in the mirror. The child is similar to you not only in the color of the eyes and the shape of the ears, but also in the features of the physique.

Reason Four: Loads

You, of course, had to watch the children. At home, on the street, they are able to run, jump, jump, somersault for hours. By nature, a child is a bunch of energy that needs to be released. As this energy is consumed, there is a need to replenish it, that is, an appetite appears. Extremely rarely (I don’t even remember) children who systematically go in for sports complain about the lack of appetite.

In our clinic, a fairly large group of female swimmers and female gymnasts was examined. We conducted a preventive examination of Nakhimov and Cadets. no one has noticed. And it's not that they are poorly fed at home. They just have a high level of physical activity.

High energy consumption - and the child has no problems with appetite.

It is possible that in the above example it also matters the phenomenon of "collective nutrition". Even in the old days, wealthy people with little children used to invite children from poor families to dinner. It turns out that a good appetite is contagious. And in our time, when a child eats in a team and when he knows that what he does not eat, his comrades will eat with pleasure, this has a very exciting effect on his appetite.

But relatives of a fat boy complain about his lack of appetite. It turns out that he was released from physical education on some far-fetched pretext, after school he does additional work foreign language, v music school plays the violin, in the evening - at the computer. Usual modern child! Why be surprised here? Yes, even with reduced appetite, he remains overweight.

What can be done to help here? We'll have to break the whole existing way family life. It is not enough to give your offspring useful advice. We need a personal example here. You will have to go jogging with him in the morning, play football with him in the afternoon, ski in the winter, ride a bike in the summer, take him to the pool, go hiking. Or - to recognize their parental failure and leave everything as it is.

Reason five: feeding through force

Well, of course, it is impossible to force an appetite, but it is possible to force your child to eat without any appetite. And a lot of people go that route. You can often hear: “Well, immediately force! We don’t force our child, we persuade him.” Indeed, what kind of tricks do households invent to satiate their beloved child.

Of course, it is possible to stuff porridge or mashed potatoes into the child’s mouth, but will the food be digested with such feeding? Academician I.P. Pavlov's work proved and subsequently repeatedly confirmed that for normal digestion it is not enough to put food in the stomach. It is necessary that the food looks appetizing, that it smells delicious and causes the release of gastric and intestinal juices.

Food taken fraudulently is poorly digested and not fully absorbed, and also disrupts the reflex activity of the digestive tract and contributes to the development of its diseases.

Well, it is completely unacceptable to feed a child under the threat of punishment. Under the influence of fear, the production of digestive juices generally stops, spasms of the stomach and intestines occur, vomiting and involuntary defecation are possible. This is how a neurosis is formed - a syndrome of habitual vomiting.

Food for a child means a lot - it is his growth, his development, his energy and his health. But a decrease in appetite in a child is not a tragedy at all. Of course, this may be one of the symptoms of a disease, but more often this is the result of nutritional errors.

Comment on the article "The child does not eat well. 5 reasons for the lack of appetite in children"

My daughter at 2.5 years old had the following situation. She began to refuse food, at first selectively, then even from her favorite foods. It lasted for about three weeks. The pediatrician did not see anything wrong with this, she said not to force, to remove snacks. When my daughter ate 2 tablespoons of porridge in the morning for three days in a row, and drank only water for the rest of the day, I began to panic. At the same time, the child asked to eat, but refused everything that I offered. Fortunately, we were just about to have a scheduled examination at the dentist, where we found stomatitis. As soon as the gums began to be treated, the daughter began to eat better every day. Therefore, be more attentive to your children and make sure that the child is healthy.

2015-02-11 11.02.2015 22:32:13,

My daughter didn't eat well when she went to school. of course - pick up buns and chocolates, what kind of soup is there? That year, we were finally introduced food cards, now I don’t just give cash, I eat in the canteen (soup, buckwheat, vegetables), and at home I also eat normal food with appetite. This may be a rather harsh measure, but the stomach will be healthy, and excess weight will not be. And then it’s scary to look at some modern children - they are 10 years old, and already have double chins (

2015-08-24 24.08.2015 22:07:27,

Any mother at least once faced a situation when her seven-year-old child tightly squeezes her lips, turns away and refuses to eat. How to behave in this case? After all, a prolonged decrease in appetite can be not just an act of protest, but also evidence of health problems. Let's discuss what to do when your child is not eating well.

Causes of Poor Appetite in Children

When wondering why a seven-year-old baby does not eat well, think about what exactly you mean by the term “bad”. Perhaps the child refuses what you are trying to offer him, but willingly absorbs something else. Then we can talk about selective appetite, unless, of course, harmful products such as chips, snacks and other fast food are included in the priority list.
There are a lot of reasons for a decrease in children's appetite:

• monotony - the baby is simply tired of eating the same thing, his body is fed up;
• lack of a clear eating regimen - it is advisable to follow a daily meal schedule, in which the intervals between meals will be 2-3 hours. seven year old child can sit down at the table 4-6 times a day;
• uncontrolled snacking - in tandem with the previous paragraph, is one of common causes decreased appetite in children. Regularly eating either a candy or a sandwich, the child simply does not have time to get hungry enough by the time of a full meal, and, naturally, refuses to sit down at the table with you;
• unwillingness to chew or eat on their own - some children, even grown-ups, are very fond of being spoon-fed, and when they are refused, they immediately demonstrate protest and unwillingness to eat;
• infectious diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, allergens - if you feel unwell, accompanied by fever, cough, runny nose and other troubles, the child naturally refuses food;
• problems of the digestive system - diseases of the intestines, stomach, liver and others internal organs negatively affect the desire of the child to eat a hearty meal;
• lack of iron - may be accompanied by a perverted or very selective appetite (with severe anemia). In this case, it is first important to restore the level of iron in the baby's body and create reserves with the help of medications, and then work with appetite;
• serious diseases (tumors, metabolic disorders, problems with brain function, breathing, heart, etc.);
• psychological factors - pressure from parents leading to an open clash of interests, banal whims in order to get something better and tastier, unformed value of food, fixed negative memories of the process of eating (for example, adults scolded in early childhood if the baby did not eat to the end ).

It happens that, without understanding the reasons, excited parents try by hook or by crook to feed a fastidious baby: they persuade, play, threaten, scold, force, feed between times (during games, for example), etc. Whatever the reason for the child’s refusal to eat, try to calm down and move on from the question “how to make a 7-year-old baby eat” to thinking about how to help him and get him interested in food.

What to do to make a 7-year-old child eat well?

Before you get worried that your child is not eating enough at 7 years old, compare his nutrition with the average daily intake of proteins (80 g), fats (75-80 g) and carbohydrates (300-350 g). In general, this will be approximately 2500 kcal per day. Divide these numbers by 4-6 meals and try to make a menu based on these data. It may be more convenient to feed the little one in small portions, but more often, than to try to cram the whole portion into him at one time.
Try to get away from the model of strict control over the amount of food eaten - your baby himself knows how much he wants to eat, leave him to be responsible for issues related to himself. Praise the baby, even if there is a lot of food left on the plate (we form positive emotions for the meal process). Use a beautiful and appetizing serving, serve accompanying products to the dishes (canapes, sandwiches, croutons, pies). Many children with great zeal save the heroes depicted at the bottom of the plate from the flood. Give up TV, tablet, games and performances during the meal - it distracts from the process and creates the wrong automatisms for the future. Sit down at the table with the whole family and demonstrate the rules good manners- looking at you, the baby will soon also begin to eat willingly.
Try to be patient with your child, treat his temporary whims with understanding, and in this friendly atmosphere, your child's healthy appetite will not keep you waiting.

Appetite is the emotional manifestation of the body's physiological need for nutrients and the desire to consume certain foods. Decrease and loss of appetite are manifested by a complete or partial refusal to eat.

Hunger and appetite should not be confused. From a medical point of view, these are different, albeit interconnected, concepts. The feeling of hunger is a reflex that manifests itself when special centers of the brain are excited against the background of a lack or insufficient supply of nutrients to the body.

The main signs of hunger are pulling discomfort in the sublingual region and in the projection of the stomach (“in the pit of the stomach”), as well as an increase in the secretory activity of the salivary glands (profuse salivation). Appetite is a selective manifestation of hunger, depending on individual preferences, emotional state and a number of other factors.

Causes of Loss of Appetite

It is customary to distinguish between the following types of changes in appetite:

• complete loss of appetite ();
• partial reduction;
• change in taste preferences.

Causes of loss of appetite in children include:

Loss of appetite in a child is often one of the symptoms of the so-called. "seasonal" diseases - and. In the acute period, you should not feed the patient "through force", since in this situation incomplete digestion of food is possible. A child's refusal to eat may be the first clinical manifestation of poor-quality foods or medicines. It is not excluded (, etc.), which require hospitalization in the infectious disease department of a hospital.

Loss of appetite often indicates the presence of serious autoimmune diseases and pathologies of the liver and hepatobiliary system. If loss of appetite is accompanied by dyspeptic disorders (belching,), there is reason to suspect the development or exacerbation of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. In such cases, it is necessary to seek help from a specialist gastroenterologist who will prescribe necessary tests and develop a treatment plan.

When, in addition to loss of appetite, a child has drowsiness and, there is reason to suspect endocrine diseases - in particular, (a decrease in the functional activity of the thyroid gland). In such cases, consultation with an endocrinologist is required, an ultrasound scan of the "thyroid gland" and conduction. It helps to identify pathological processes in the pituitary gland and (or) hypothalamus.

Metabolic disorders often develop against the background of growth. Already in the early stages, the patient's taste sensations change, and loss of appetite is noted. The rejection of meat food should be especially alert. If there are certain signs of a tumor, the patient is sent for examination to an oncologist.

With neuropsychiatric disorders, a decrease or complete loss of appetite () is one of the leading clinical signs. The process of eating does not give the patient pleasure, the products seem tasteless, and rapid satiety appears. Even small portions of food cause unpleasant sensations of heaviness and fullness in the stomach, as well as nausea. In such cases, consultation and treatment with a psychotherapist or neuropathologist is required.

Note:most often, anorexia nervosa is diagnosed in young girls with an unjustified desire for weight loss. With this pathology, an aversion to food is gradually formed. Often, against the background of anorexia, severe exhaustion develops, in severe cases accompanied by irreversible changes in the body. With a complete loss of appetite, long-term treatment in a hospital may be required.

Loss of appetite (more often, a more or less pronounced decrease) may well be a variant of the norm, i.e., it is far from always a sign of somatic diseases or nervous disorders. Children's need for food changes at different stages of development. It is determined by the intensity of growth, energy costs and hormonal levels.

Important:studies of eating behavior in children have shown that every fifth child at 4-5 years old is picky about food. In some of them, this feature persists up to 9-10 years.

Decreased or loss of appetite in children

In children under 3 years of age, loss of appetite is often associated with, which is accompanied by severe local discomfort and deterioration in general well-being.

A child, as a rule, refuses to eat if he develops an infectious lesion of the mucous membranes of the oral cavity (). Inflammation and the formation of numerous sores makes the process of eating painful.

Often the cause of a decrease or loss of appetite is force-feeding "by the clock." Eating "through force", when hunger has not yet appeared at low energy costs, can even lead to the formation of a negative attitude towards certain products. You can not force the child to eat with encouragement or threats - the appetite must develop on its own.

Note:taste preferences in children sometimes change literally daily. The food that he eats with pleasure today may disgust the baby tomorrow.

Loss of appetite is possible if the baby is not accustomed to eating in accordance with a certain regimen.

Refusal to eat is a common occurrence when snacking between main meals. Perhaps all parents know that sweets and starchy foods (“fast” carbohydrates) impair appetite. You should not be surprised if the baby, having eaten a bun or chocolate shortly before dinner, refuses soup.

Nervous excitement or excessive fatigue can also affect appetite.

What to do with loss of appetite in children?

When a child regularly refuses food or eats with apparent reluctance, it is first of all important to exclude the presence of nervous or somatic pathologies. In their absence, important attention is paid to the formation of the daily regimen and nutrition, care that the food is full and varied.

How can parents help?

When a child, in the absence of serious diseases, limits his diet himself, there is no need to worry that he will starve.

Average age needs of a growing body in kilocalories:

• 3-5 years - 1500;
• 5-8 years - 1800;
• 8-12 years - 2000;
• 12-16 years old - 2400.

Important:excess calories can cause a set of extra pounds and, which is increasingly being diagnosed in children at the present time.

Some parents believe that a well-fed, slightly overweight child needs more calories than their skinny peers. This is fundamentally wrong. It is thinness that is evidence that all the calories received with food are burned. In overweight children who are prone to calm games, the need for food may be noticeably less. It is often possible to observe how a chubby baby by the age of 9-10 begins to “stretch” and there is no trace of fullness.

Appetite, as a rule, increases significantly during the period of active growth and puberty. Parallel to the change hormonal background, there is a restructuring of all types of metabolism. The adequacy of nutrition is determined not by the amount of food consumed, but by the rate of growth and development of the child and the degree of fatness.

Note:at different periods of life, children do not grow quite evenly, and their need for calories changes accordingly. From birth to 3-4 years, the period of “first fullness” continues, and then for the vast majority, a “half-height growth spurt” begins, and children, as a rule, go to the first grade slender and thin.

To improve appetite, the child needs to be offered a variety of foods, avoiding the so-called. food conservatism.

It is necessary, as far as possible, to regulate the energy consumption of children. To improve the child's appetite, regular walks in the fresh air, active games and physical education and sports are required. If he spends most of his time at the computer or in front of the TV, it should not be surprising that his need for food decreases.

A good remedy for loss of appetite in a child is a good example. It is recommended to have lunch and dinner with the whole family. It is important that parents enjoy eating the same dishes that are offered to children.

The baby should eat in a calm environment, without being distracted by external stimuli. He should not be allowed to eat in front of the TV.

If the child is hungry between meals, offer him or dried fruits. These products will not kill your appetite, but will help to cope with the feeling of hunger.

Feeding time should be limited to 20-30 minutes, and if you refuse one or another food - 15 minutes.

Poor appetite: which doctor should I contact?

With a persistent decrease or loss of appetite, it is necessary to show the baby to the pediatrician. It is possible that specialist advice is required.

If the baby appears sickly, tired, or simply lacks energy, the following may need to be tested:

• nutritionist;
• endocrinologist;
• psychologist;
• neurologist;
• gastroenterologist.

It is possible that treatment of the underlying disease is required to normalize appetite. A good reason to see a doctor is a delay in the growth and development of the child, as well as his poor general well-being.

With diagnosed pathologies of the digestive system, the child is prescribed a diet (in accordance with a specific identified disease), which will have to be followed for a long time. For any diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, nutrition should be fractional, that is, relatively frequent (6 or more times a day) and in small portions.

Folk remedies to normalize appetite

Can be used to increase appetite folk recipes- decoctions and infusions of medicinal herbs.

Note: before giving herbal medicines to a child, be sure to consult a pediatrician for contraindications and the likelihood of developing allergic reactions.

Recipe 1

2 tsp dry or fresh raspberries, pour 200 ml of boiled water and leave for 30 minutes. With loss of appetite, the child should be given 100 ml of infusion 4 times a day before meals.

Recipe 2

Pour 200 ml of water 2 tsp. dry crushed dandelion root and infuse for 10-12 hours. The infusion should be taken 50 ml 3-4 times a day 30 minutes before meals.

Recipe 4

Brew 1 tsp. dried herb bitter wormwood 200 ml of boiling water and leave for 30 minutes. The infusion should be taken in 1 tsp. in 15-20 min. before meals three times a day.

Recipe 5

½ st. l. dry cornflower flowers pour a glass of boiled water, leave for 15 minutes, cool and strain. With loss of appetite, the infusion is recommended to drink 50 ml in 15-30 minutes. before meals.

Recipe 6

½ tsp parsley seeds, pour 200 ml of cold water, put on fire and heat for half an hour, without boiling. Cool and strain the finished infusion. The drug is recommended to give the child 1 tbsp. l. 4-5 times a day before meals.