Six wrong breakfasts affect children's health

The harm of skipping breakfast to children's health has been recognized by more and more people. You must eat breakfast, but you should also pay attention to how to eat it and how not to eat it. Improper breakfast eating habits can also harm your health and take away your happiness. There are several popular and common ways to eat breakfast, but you should remember: Don’t eat it this way!

Method 1: Give your baby a "refreshing breakfast" 

Breakfast: Leftovers, or fried rice with leftovers, noodles with leftovers, etc.

Reason for popularity: Many families' "moms" will make extra when cooking dinner, and make fried rice for their children and family the next morning, or heat up the leftovers. Such breakfast is easy to prepare, rich in content, basically the same as a regular meal, and is generally considered to be nutritionally complete.

Expert comment: After leftover food is left overnight, the vegetables may produce nitrite (a carcinogen), which can be harmful to human health if eaten.

Suggestions: Try not to eat leftover vegetables; make sure to store leftover food for breakfast to prevent it from spoiling; heat food taken out of the refrigerator thoroughly.

Method 2: Let your baby eat instant breakfast

Breakfast content: Various Western fast food

Reason for popularity: Western fast food such as hamburgers, fried chicken wings, etc. have always been the dietary preference of fashionable people, and many mothers also like to feed these things to their babies. Moreover, many fast food restaurants now provide special breakfasts, such as hamburgers with coffee or milk, black tea, which are convenient, fast and taste good, but it is not good for babies to eat these things.

Expert comment: This high-calorie breakfast can easily lead to obesity, and long-term consumption of fried foods can also be harmful to the body. Eat Western fast food for breakfast, and low-calorie foods for lunch and dinner.

In addition, this type of Western breakfast has the problem of nutritional imbalance. It is high in calories but often lacks vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients.

Recommendation: When choosing Western fast food for breakfast, you should add fruit or vegetable soup to maintain a balanced nutrition and ensure the intake of various nutrients. Also, it is best not to consume it for a long time.

Method 3: “Traditional” breakfast

Breakfast: fried dough sticks, soy milk

Reason for popularity: Many children are accustomed to eating fried dough sticks with soy milk in the morning under the guidance of their grandparents since they were young. Not only are they accustomed to this way of eating in terms of taste, but they also have many years of emotional "savings" for it.

Expert comment: Fried dough sticks are a high-temperature fried food and, like sesame seed cakes and fried dumplings, have the problem of high fat content. After food is fried at high temperature, nutrients will be destroyed and carcinogens will be produced. In addition, fried dough sticks are relatively high in calories and the fat is difficult to digest. In addition, soy milk is also a medium-fat food. The fat content of this breakfast combination obviously exceeds the standard and is not suitable for long-term consumption.

Recommendation: Breakfast must include vegetables or fruits. It is best to eat less soy milk and fried dough sticks. It is not advisable to feed your baby more than once a week. Lunch and dinner on the same day must be as light as possible. Do not eat fried, pan-fried or stir-fried foods, and add more vegetables.

Way 4: Snack breakfast

Breakfast contents: various snacks, such as snow cakes, biscuits, chocolates, etc.

Reason for popularity: Many parents keep some snacks at home in case of emergency. When we wake up in the morning, we don’t have much time, so we often pick up snacks as breakfast for our baby, which is convenient and quick.

Expert comment: It is okay for babies to eat snacks such as biscuits and chocolate when they are hungry, but it is very unscientific to use snacks as breakfast, the most important meal of the day.

Most snacks are dry food, which is not conducive to digestion and absorption for the human body which is in a semi-dehydrated state in the morning. Moreover, the main ingredients of snacks such as biscuits are grains. Although they can provide energy in a short period of time, they will soon make children feel hungry again. Blood sugar levels will drop significantly near noon. Eating snacks for breakfast can easily lead to malnutrition, physical deterioration, and easy invasion of various diseases.

Recommendation: It is not advisable to replace breakfast with snacks, especially do not eat too much dry food. Breakfast food should contain enough water. If your breakfast is too dry, you can add a cucumber.

Way 5: Sports breakfast

Breakfast content: Breakfast bought on the roadside, eaten while walking, moving hands, feet, mouth, whole body...

Reason for popularity: Office workers spend their mornings in a hurry. Many parents often eat breakfast on the way when sending their babies to kindergarten or school. The food sold at the entrance of the community and near the bus station, such as steamed buns, tea eggs, roujiamo, and pancakes, is their first choice. They buy one and eat it while walking...

Expert comment: Eating while walking is not good for the gastrointestinal health of adults and children, and is not conducive to digestion and absorption; in addition, street food often has hygiene risks and may cause illness through eating.

Suggestion: If you choose street food for breakfast, first, you must pay attention to hygiene, and second, it is best to buy it home or eat it at work. Try not to eat breakfast on your way to work to avoid damaging your health.

Method 6: "Nutritious" breakfast

Breakfast contents: nutritious foods such as fruits, vegetables, milk, etc., but lacking staple foods with "low nutritional value".

Reason for popularity: This type of breakfast is very popular because staple food is the main source of calories, and today's parents want their babies to be healthy, not necessarily chubby... Therefore, all kinds of high-nutrition foods should be eaten, but calories should be reduced.

Expert comment: Many parents mistakenly believe that staple foods only provide calories and have nothing to do with nutrition. In fact, carbohydrates also fall within the realm of nutrition and are extremely important to the human body. Without sufficient calorie supply, the human body will automatically decompose and release calories. Not eating staple foods for a long time will cause malnutrition and lead to the weakening of various body functions.

In addition, yogurt and fruits that are acidic and rich in crude fiber, such as tomatoes, bananas, snow pears, plums, and apricots, should not be consumed on an empty stomach.

Suggestion: You should increase the intake of staple foods such as bread and steamed buns. These cereal foods can provide your baby with enough carbohydrates and are also beneficial for the absorption of milk.