Optimal growth and development of a child primarily depend on the nutrition. A child‘s behavior, emotions, physical growth, and development defines what type of diet he is having each day. Food is the only source for nutrition delivery which provides strength for growth and participates in all metabolic functions of the body.
Objectives Of Diet Counseling
The chief objective of dietary counseling in child oral health is caries prevention and it should begin at an early age before the visible signs of cavities. The main purposes of diet counseling are to help parents change their and their children's dietary behaviors. Parents have right to choose a diet for their kid with low sugar snacks, limited sweet foods at mealtimes and oral hygiene. Some of the points parents need to consider before deciding the diet of their kids are:
- Correction of diet imbalance which is affecting their child's general and oral health.
- Modification of dietary habits, particularly food that contains more amount of sugar responsible for primary caries.
- Dietary changes you made for your kids should be realistic and based on the current diet of the family which can easily acceptable by the kids.
Meanwhile, you can make few modifications in the diet over a period of time, aided by repetition and reinforcement. The main objective is to develop lifelong dietary habits for your kid, which promotes general and oral health for themselves.
Dietary Screening & Education
At Kids Smile Dentist, we routinely screen our child patients to assess the role of diet and management. Dental screening includes determination of dietary intake and behaviors that are associated with oral health status and caries risk. We strongly recommend a healthy nutritious diet for our child patient and parents need to learn what kind of diet is necessary for their loved ones. There are different types diet modules required for kids with the different age. Some of the things parents need to look after dietary supplement for their kids are:
- Breast-feeding:
Breast -feeding is an ideal method of infant feeding for the first 6 months. In addition to this, iron-enriched solid food is necessary between 6 to 12 months of age. It is observed that kid fed on breast milk more than infant formula and not look after the hygiene may have the chances of having baby teeth cavities. It is important for parents to know that after feeding their kids, clean their gums with wet, clean cotton cloth to minimize the risk of cavities.
- Bottle-feeding:
Bottle-feeding appears to be the effective method of feeding on an age of 6-month to 5-year-old children which are a reason to develop early dental caries. Therefore, parents have to educate about its deleterious effects and maintaining good oral hygiene as the first primary tooth’s eruption. Also, don't let their children sleep with the bottle.
- Weaning:
It's been recognized that breastfeeding and bottle feeding for over 1 year and at night even after the eruption of teeth is associated with early childhood caries. Our child dentist suggests that kids should start drinking from a cup as they are about to their first birthday. The addition of dietary fluoride supplements in the diet should be implemented at this age for the primary prevention. The best way of fluoride supplement is drinking water, which is fluoridated by community water supplies. It is important for parents to know the fluoride intake for their kids older than 6 months of age.
- Water with less than 0.3 ppm fluoride
- Dietary fluoride supplements of 0.25 mg fluoride per day
- No dietary fluoride for infants under the age of 6 months
- Fruit juice consumption :
Infants and kids more than 6 months should be encouraged to consume fruit juice and mashed or pureed whole fruits.
- Cereal consumption :
Cereal is the first solid foods we introduced into the infant diet. We suggest exposure to cereals before 3 months of age may be linked with possible risk for diabetes in kids. Also, it leads to early childhood caries.
Visit Kids smile Dentist, to learn more about diet counseling for your kids.