Nutrition plays a crucial role in the development of a child. Proper nutrition can help meet the nutritional needs of the child with respect to brain development and body development. If the child is under-nourished, he will fail to reach his potential. Poor eating habit or poor diet and medical conditions like diabetes, allergies and other diseases may impair the health of the child if left unchecked. Hence, a pediatric nutritionist is the one who works along with the parents to establish good eating habits in a child.
Eating right and consuming right amount of calories is pretty challenging for all. With the mushrooming of so many food outlets, even the young people are getting into bad eating habits. At 4-5 years, kids are getting obese and diabetic and facing other health complications.
The task of a pediatric nutritionist
A child dietician or pediatric nutritionist works with kids of varied capacities. Some of them are hired by schools while others work independently to solve the problem related to the children nutrition. A nutritionist can work with children to help them combat obesity. Those kids who suffer from severe allergies and heath conditions like diabetes, celiac disease, colitis need specialized meal plan in order to control their medical conditions. Such a meal plan is needed to ensure proper growth and development of the child whereas it may also help to avoid allergy triggers. A reliable nutritionist can help to minimize allergic condition and may keep everything under check. Nutrition will be adequate for the growth of the child. You must look for a pediatric nutritionist who works for specialized areas. If your child is a vegan, the nutritionist must prepare a specialized vegan meal plan for your child. Similarly, kids who take part in competitive sports, and are always active; they need a different kind of meal plan.
What kind of dietician you must look for?
It is vital to look for a dietician or nutritionist who is licensed. Such a dietician will follow an educational path and implement that in his profession. He should hold an undergraduate degree in pediatric nutrition and must have completed core curriculum coursework as designed by ACEND. After acquiring a bachelor’s degree, the nutritionist can also take up professional courses separately. For certain areas of practice, advanced certification is also required. Different countries regulate nutritionists or dieticians in different ways. What is required here is being up-to-date in the practice.
A pediatric dietician can counsel
Individual counseling on food and nutrition is required. Parents can receive valuable advices on child nutrition and diet plan. They also provide home health services whereby he may guide you how to prepare meals and do grocery shopping. Most of the child nutritionists work for nursing homes, hospitals and for physician offices.
Healthy food choices
With the help of a pediatric nutritionist, you may make healthy food choices for your child. He can also work along with the child doctor to prepare meal plans for kids suffering from diabetics. So, when you have a child dietician by your side, you may encourage your child to adopt healthy eating habits. Then, there are those nutritionists and registered dieticians who work with food manufacturing firms to provide dietary analysis or valuable advices on the nutritional content of cooked food.
A pediatric nutritionist is the professional focusing on dietary needs and nutritional requirements of children, toddlers, infants and even adolescents. He can also provide you recipes to cook healthy foods. You may gain access to recipes that are low-cholesterol, low-fat, allergen-free, low-salt and chemical free.