Family Diet and Eating Habits as Factors Influencing Child Health and Development
A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Nutrition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 March 2025 | Viewed by 22
Special Issue Editor
Interests: dietary patterns; complementary feeding; nutrition of infants, children, and adolescents; relationship between nutrition and healthy development of children or quality of life; nutrition knowledge
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Family diet and eating habits are factors that influence child health and development. Parental factors and the level of parental nutritional knowledge are important both for the duration of breastfeeding, the timing of diet expansion, and the composition of the diet of older children. Parental non-compliance with feeding recommendations can result in the development of feeding disorders, nutritional deficiencies, or excessive weight in the child. It is important that knowledge is put into practice and allows health-promoting feeding behaviour to be perpetuated in the family. Both very early and very late expansion of the infant's diet and irregularities in reading the signals indicating the child's hunger or satiety lead to feeding errors and feeding difficulties and can have a negative impact on the child's physical and psycho-emotional development. Mistakes made by parents can contribute to the child's reluctance to explore new foods, the consumption of excessive amounts of energy, a mismatch between the composition of the diet and the maturity of the child's digestive system, and a higher incidence of allergic reactions to foods. In the case of older children, it is not only the quantity of meals that is important but also their composition, the consumption of the first breakfast, and the matching of portion sizes to the child's needs. It is important to compose meals correctly to continue correct behaviours to prevent the development of diet-dependent diseases in both childhood and adulthood. Nutritional deficiencies can lead not only to growth disorders but also to the development of feeding disorders, which, perpetuated in childhood, are risk factors for the development of many diseases of civilisation, eating disorders, or emotional disorders in later life. Therefore, the family's eating habits and diet are key factors in the child's physical, mental, and health development.
Dr. Małgorzata Kostecka
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- family diet
- eating habits
- child health
- nutritional knowledge
