These days, kids love to eat junk food such as burgers, pizzas, soft drinks, pastries, etc. Parents too necessitate as these are affordable, easily available and tasty too. But did you know your child’s food choices could affect their intelligence levels? By giving your child unhealthy foods, you are risking not just their physical health but also their brain development. Junk food has surplus calories but hardly any nutrition. We ask one of a nutritionist how food choices can affect your kid’s mental health. So that he answered as follows for the question Can food make your child smarter and more intelligent?
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Does the food kids eat crash their intelligence?
Yes, a child’s eating habits greatly affect his brain development and intelligence. Some of the effects are Slow memory, lack of concentration, lethargy, sleepiness – are all the result of a child’s eating habits. As rightly proven, food can make or break an individual. Good nutrition comes from good eating habits. It fuels the brain and keeps it active sufficient to function optimally throughout the day. Also, the right nutrition encourages optimal growth of brain cells, nerves and tissues in turn improving a child’s concentration, memory and intelligence.
What foods promote the better brain growth?
For healthy brain development and nervous system, Give your kid the following foods regularly and sure for make them to eat:
- Natural sugars like dried fruits, banana, honey, custard apple
- Nuts like walnuts, cashews, almonds, peanuts
- Milk and milk products like yoghurt, paneer and cheese
- Green leafy vegetables like spinach, methi, spring onions
- Turmeric
- Seafood
- Ghee and fresh white butter
Which foods affect the brain growth unfavorably?
Artificial sweeteners, white sugar and other commercially used sweeteners directly impact the development of brain and nervous system. Overdose of candies, chocolates, desserts, sweets, sugary cereals, aerated beverages, packaged juices, sherbets are shown to cause loss of memory, lethargy, irritability in children. Also read how India’s top junk food joints are ruining your kid’s health.
How can one make sure their kids are not eating these foods?
The trick to get children to eat healthy is to ‘minimize and not avoid’. Always restrict harmful or junk foods to once a week so that they do not develop a craving for the same.
Another way is to substitute packaged foods with equally interesting home-made goodies. Baked potato wedges made at home v/s French fries or home-made jaggery-whole wheat cake v/s store-bought cakes or fresh fruit juice v/s packaged drinks – the options are endless.