Nutrition For Children

Description

The period that begins after infancy and lasts until puberty often is referred to as the latent or quiescent period of growth—a contrast to the dramatic changes that occur during infancy and adolescence. Although physical growth may be less remarkable and proceed at a steadier pace than it did during the first year, these preschool and elementary school years are a time of significant growth in the social, cognitive, and emotional areas.Because children are growing and developing bones, teeth,muscles, and blood, they need more nutritious food in proportion to their size than do adults. They may be at risk for malnutrition when they have a poor appetite for a long period, eat a limited number of foods, or dilute their diets significantly with nutrient-poor foods.

Adolescence is one of the most exciting yet challenging periodsin human development. Generally thought of as the period of life that occurs between 12 and 21 years of age, adolescence is a period of tremendous physiologic, psychologic, and cognitive transformation during which a child becomes a young adult. Preoccupation with body size, body shape, and body image (the mental self-concept and perception of personal body size), resulting from the rapid growth and development that has occurred, may lead to dieting and possibly disordered eating behaviour such as anorexia,bulimia,binge eating,etc. Thus adolescents need to learn about right food and nutrition