Overeating in children

Many parents face nutritional disorders in children. Some complain that the child does not want to eat anything, while others complain of increased voracity. Overeating in childhood causes many problems that negatively affect the health of the growing body.

[1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

Causes of the child overeating

The main causes of binge eating attacks in children:

• Overfeeding - the parents' wrong approach to the children's diet leads to the fact that the child regularly eats more than the norm prescribed for him. And this is not surprising, because in society there is still an opinion that for good health you need to eat a lot, especially children.
• Harmful products - if a child regularly abuses sweets, carbonated drinks, fatty and fried foods, this causes excess weight and negatively affects the condition of the internal organs.
• Deficiency of water - some parents since childhood accustom kids to improper quenching of thirst. This begins with an infant, when instead of water, the baby is given milk. At an older age, children drink soda and other sweet drinks, which significantly increase the daily calorie rate.
• Dysfunction of the diet - long breaks between meals lead to eating food for future use. This problem is especially relevant for school-age children.
• Psychosomatic factors - eating disorder can be an attempt to seize stress, calm or encourage.

For other reasons for overeating, read this article.

[6], [7]

Symptoms of the child overeating

Uncontrolled absorption of food in childhood causes many painful symptoms, including a fever. As a rule, hyperthermia proceeds with additional symptoms:

• Nausea and vomiting.
• Stomach ache.
• Deterioration of general well-being.
• Weakness and lethargy.
• Diarrhea.

A painful condition can be associated with over-eating of overdue or improperly prepared foods. Also, the temperature occurs with food allergies and poisoning. The task of parents to determine what caused the deterioration of the child's well-being.

If the fever is elevated due to overeating, the child needs to be given an enzyme preparation to speed up the digestion process. If there is a risk of poisoning, you should take activated charcoal, and in especially severe cases, induce vomiting and seek medical help. Other signs of overeating read here.

Overeating in infants

The problem of overeating in newborns is familiar to many mothers. It occurs both in infants on breastfeeding, and on the artificial. Since the baby is not able to say that he is full or hungry, he expresses this by his behavior. The task of parents is to pay special attention to this and not try to feed the baby with the first crying or capricious behavior.

Signs of overeating in newborns:

• Not an age-appropriate increase in weight.
• Abundant regurgitation after feeding.
• Frequent requests of the newborn to be applied to the chest end in profuse vomiting.

Based on the above symptoms, the main factor in overfeeding children is vomiting, that is, regurgitation of food recently eaten. This symptom is due to the anatomical features of the newborn's gastrointestinal tract. The stomach of the babies has a horizontal arrangement, and the sphincter that connects the esophagus and stomach has a reduced tone.

In this case, pediatricians are advised to be afraid of child overeating during lactation, because the body of the newborn determines the amount of food necessary for it. To avoid overeating, it is strictly forbidden to restrict babies in food. The less application there is to the breast, the more each time the baby will eat and regurgitate. It is also necessary to observe the frequency of feeding the newborn, taking into account the peculiarities of the work of the children's digestive system.

[8], [9]

Overeating with a mixture

Since a newborn can not regulate the process of saturation with an artificial mixture that is unnatural for him, very often this leads to the problem of overeating. Nutrition of an artificial baby requires special care and compliance with certain rules.

• The process of digesting the mixture takes twice as long as digesting the mother's milk. Proceeding from this, breaks between feedings should be long, so that the child has time to digest the eaten food. It is recommended to maintain a three-hour interval between feedings.
• When choosing a nutrient mix, carefully study its packaging, composition and application features. It is not superfluous to consult a pediatrician.
• Do not force the child to eat all the prepared portion of the mixture, especially if he refuses. Overfeeding leads to stretching of the children's stomach and disorders from the gastrointestinal tract.
• The child should suck the mixture from the nipple itself. If the food easily pours out, this leads to the fact that the baby does not feel saturated, and because of overeating, the baby's intestine experiences an increased load. The mixture must completely fill the nipple in order to minimize the ingestion of air and regurgitation.

Non-compliance with the above recommendations leads to the development of violations of the children's digestive system. First of all, the enzymatic apparatus is depleted. Because of this, the food that enters the intestines is not processed by enzymes, which causes gastrointestinal disorders and a disturbance in the healthy microflora.

Against the background of regular overeating with the mixture, the child becomes restless and sluggish. Gases and loose stools appear. In especially severe cases, it is possible to develop intussusception, that is, intestinal obstruction, the treatment of which involves surgical intervention.

Overeating during breastfeeding

If a newborn uses only mother's milk, then his body independently regulates the process of saturation. Proceeding from this, overeating of breast milk is almost impossible.

• Mother's milk is the most valuable product for the baby. In this case, the composition of this nutrient fluid varies with the growth of the baby.
• The child takes the breast not only to eat, but also to soothe. The task of the woman to regularly apply the baby to the breast.
• The composition of milk is easily assimilated by a child's organism, of course, provided that the mother does not use allergenic products and adheres to a healthy diet. Mother's milk is quickly digested.

It is very important to observe the schedule of applying the baby to the breast so that he does not experience hunger. That untimely food leads to the fact that the child eats more than normal and begins to regurgitate excess.

Regurgitation of the child from overeating

The regurgitation of a child after a meal is a physiological reaction, which indicates that the baby's stomach gets rid of excess. That is, the newborn independently regulates the amount of food eaten. However, eructation does not adversely affect his state of health.

If the baby is on artificial feeding, then regurgitation can indicate overeating. In order to protect the infant from this problem, it is necessary to adhere to a clear time of feeding and not to allow that the baby was starving.

Another possible cause of regurgitation, which young parents perceive as overfeeding, is the ingress of air into the stomach. In the process of sucking, the baby can swallow the air, which causes the departure of the newly eaten. To avoid this problem, the mother should correctly put the baby to the breast and make sure that the teat of the bottle is completely filled with the mixture.

Overeating in adolescents

The problem of overeating in adolescence often has a psychological overtones. Excessive eating can indicate severe adolescent stress, because the body is prone to hormonal changes. The child is looking for his place in the team and begins to fully experience his sex. This can be accompanied by various complexes, which lead to seizing the "problem".

If the nutritional disorder is of a one-time nature, then you should not worry. But if overeating occurs regularly and ends with vomiting, you should consult a doctor. This is associated with a high risk of developing bulimia in adolescents. Another worrying factor of uncontrolled food intake is a sign of taking drugs or alcohol.

The parents' task is to closely monitor the psycho-emotional state of the adolescent and organize a healthy diet for him. Not unimportant is the favorable background in the family, the violation of which can also cause food disorders.

Prevention

In order to protect the child from overeating and its complications, it is necessary to carefully approach the children's diet. The task of parents to organize a diet with natural products, which do not exert a heavy load on the digestive tract and do not interfere with the digestive process.

[10], [11]