Table of contents:
A child who doesn't want to eat will definitely make your head tilt. Especially if you only want to drink milk continuously. In fact, children still need to eat to stay healthy. Is milk alone enough to meet the nutritional needs of children who have difficulty eating?
Can you replace food with milk?
Cow's milk is called a natural food that is almost perfect because it contains complete nutrition. From calories, protein, sugar, carbohydrates, folic acid, fat, to vitamins and minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, all in a glass of cow's milk.
However, even though it is nutrient dense, milk cannot be used as a substitute for food because as children get older their nutritional needs will increase in number and variety. A glass of milk is still not able to meet the needs of a variety of nutrients in one day.
Here's a case in point: a glass of cow's milk usually contains only 8 grams of protein, while the average child needs about 18-30 grams of protein each day. Now from here it can be seen that drinking three glasses of cow's milk a day has not been able to meet children's protein needs.
Moreover, milk is low in vitamin C and fiber. The content of this unbalanced variation is certainly not good for the child's body. If a child only wants to drink milk, it is not impossible that he will be malnourished. Many diseases can affect children due to lack of certain vitamins or minerals. His body became less powerful and less active as usual.
In addition, cow's milk is very high in sugar. Most of drinking milk over a long period of time can make you gain weight and interfere with growth.
So, how do you deal with your child refusing to eat?
It's okay to serve milk when your child doesn't want to eat as long as you can make sure that he continues to eat at the next meal, instead of drinking milk again.
Remember the daily portion of milk for children is two 250 ml glasses. No more than the recommended dose.
In order for children to eat, there are several steps you can follow, including:
- Offer some other food and let the child choose the food that he wants to enjoy. However, make sure the food you offer is healthy and nutritious.
- Don't force him to eat. Forcing him to eat will make his mood worse and harder to control. Don't lure your child with candy or other sugary foods so that he wants to eat because this will increase his calorie intake.
- Invite friends or relatives to eat together. Usually children like to follow what other people do and will eat more heartily.
- In a situation like this, don't give your child a menu of foods that your child doesn't like for a while. You can give him this menu at a later time.
- Vary the food menu to make it more interesting and make children interested in eating it. You can invite children to shop and cook food together, so that they will be more enthusiastic about eating.
x