All of the topics of choice are very important to the healthy development of children. I chose the topic of nutrition/malnutrition. I feel that proper nutrition is so important for prenatal development and development of infants and children. Proper nutrients provides the body with the nourishment it needs to develop the brain, organs, and the overall health of a child. Without proper nutrition children are at risk for not growing properly, not developing cognitive skills, and are more at risk for being sick. Children that are not healthy will struggle in school which could cause them to lag behind. Children that are often sick are more susceptible to more life threatening diseases due to a weaker immune system. Children that experience poor nutrition are also more than likely to carry the side effects into adulthood. Those of us in the early childhood field need to be aware of the effects of nutrition has on child development. It is important for the programs that offer meals during the day to the children that are in their care to know what foods promote healthy growth and development. These programs must be responsible in providing healthy well-balanced meals to the children they serve. USDA provides guidelines on the proper serving sizes and components that are required for a healthy meal. However, there is much debate over the school lunch programs which follow USDA guidelines. Early childhood programs that are encompassed with school systems have to rely on those resources. Michelle Obama's initiative on reforming school lunches has brought much awareness due to the rise in childhood obesity. I also keep in mind that for programs that work with low income families, for some of these children the meals that they have at our programs may be the only meals they have that day or be the better of the meals they have that day.
In researching nutrition in other parts of the world, Unicef has provided some interesting findings in a document titled Improving Child Nutrition, the achievable imperative for global progress. The document provides information on nutrition and malnutrition around the world. "Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of children's lives can have irreversible consequences. For millions of children, it means they are, forever, stunted" (Unicef, 2013). The effects of stunting for children are overall poor health and development delays in growth and learning. Africa is still an area of the world in which malnutrition still exists at high rates. Though there has been improvement, many children die of malnutrition. However with that said, with the efforts of Unicef, there have many nutrition programs supporting prenatal nutrition as well as child nutrition in these under developed parts of Africa.
Rhonda, you and I chose the same topic, but I focused more in the damage of being malnourish. Also I chose to talk about Indian children, in a nation so big as India where millions of money is expend making movies, a large amount of the population is under the poverty line, causing a health problem. As I stated in my post, here in the United States we have the problem of being obese, while in other part of the world children need clean water, immunization, and of course food. in other part of the world, you are lucky if you go to school and find a nice healthy meal waiting for you, most children get up in the morning to go to work to support the family, which is a shame.
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