As parents, we all want to do what's best for our babies, infants, and children. So, it can be more than a little concerning with the news that our family's youngest members could be at risk from the very thing meant to nurture us all – food.
4 months of age signals the start of an exciting window of opportunity, that if taken advantage of has the ability to not only transform your parenting journey (and family mealtimes) going forward, but more importantly, your child’s health and wellness potentials for life. 4 months marks the important opportunity to start ‘Flavour Training’!
In the medical community, there's a clear consensus on when infants should begin complementary feeding: at 6 months old. But despite the AAP, ACOG, AAFP and WHO recommendations being very clear about this timeline, parents often start much earlier.
The primary reason that official guidelines push for this 6 month mark is that very early introduction of complementary foods has been shown to reduce breastfeeding's overall duration. The medical community also holds concerns that introducing solids prior to the age of 6 months could increase the risk of choking and aspiration, lead to diarrhea and poor gut health and contribute to the onset of certain chronic diseases later in life, including diabetes and celiac disease.
So why is there so much confusion over this?
Starting solids poses such a challenge because we’re not only trying to sort through all of the available information and opinions on the topic, but also fit a brand new feeding and food preparation routine into our already busy lives. And, in the hustle to get this done, we often forget the most important element of introducing our children to food: Helping them foster a healthy relationship with food for life.
With a death toll of over 200,000 Americans and rising from Covid-19, we are all feeling the effects of this cruel pandemic. What it has highlighted however, is that certain conditions appear to increase the severity of the symptoms and the risk of death; at the top of the list is obesity and the health complications associated with it.
