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Taste disorders in children often occur in children who are given solid foods by their parents and eat processed foods too soon, or in the process of preparing food for their children, the mother has a habit of adding spices to the food. food for children under 1 year old.
1. Correct understanding of taste disorders in children
Children under 3 years old have a different number of taste buds than adults, even a lot. For example, normally adults have about 5,000 taste buds, children have twice as many taste buds, about 10,000. That's why babies are very sensitive to flavors in food.
If parents taste just right, or slightly salty or slightly sweet, it is already very sweet or too salty for the children. This means that if you cook food for children using adult senses, it will not be accurate. Feeding children too salty, sweet... can lead to taste disturbances in children, causing children to lose their taste in food and in the long term can have a bad impact on their liver and kidneys, especially with other foods. baby under 1 year old.
This disorder can be temporary or permanent, depending on the cause. Taste disorders in children can be classified as: partial or total loss of taste; partial or total loss of taste; taste disorder or ghost taste (seeing a taste that actually doesn't exist)...
2. What causes taste disorders in children?
As mentioned above, the cause of taste disorders in children is that parents feed their children too salty, too sweet... compared to the child's ability to perceive. Gradually, the baby's taste buds will be unreal and disturbed, for example in the following cases:
Babies are introduced to solid foods early (before 5.5 months of age): at this time, the baby's immature digestive system is not ready. ready to receive anything other than breast milk and formula. Your baby's taste buds are also getting used to the salty taste of breast milk and are not ready to get used to any other flavors. Children are given ready-to-eat powdered foods. According to nutrition experts, we should only introduce weaning foods to babies, starting with sifted rice flour / porridge combined with fresh food instead of buying ready-to-eat foods, because ready-made foods often contain sugar, salt, and nutrients. taste is very easy to stimulate children's taste. Seasoning (sugar, fish sauce, salt) in baby food under 1 year old. This is a very serious mistake that can cause taste disturbances and anorexia in children. The reason is that the child's need for salt and sugar at this stage has been fully met through natural food sources such as vegetables, meat, fish.... In addition, the natural taste of the food is consistent with the taste. Children's senses at this time, if added, will become too sweet, too salty for children, over time, children will eat less deliciously and then become anorexic.
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3. What to do when children lose their taste in food?
If parents accidentally make one of the above mistakes, causing children to have taste disorders, refuse to eat foods that are not seasoned, anorexic....then parents can fake salt from plants To help children balance their taste buds, it is also necessary to gradually reduce or completely reduce the amount of spices added to baby's weaning foods.
Taste disturbance also reduces the warning function of the dangers that children may encounter if they eat toxic, spoiled, allergenic foods... Candles if parents see that children have signs Signs of anorexia, decreased taste... should take the child to see a pediatrician as soon as possible, because this disorder can be corrected after knowing the cause.
For more nutritional knowledge and child care for each age, parents should regularly visit the website vimec.com and make an appointment with the leading doctors, pediatric and nutrition experts of the National General Hospital. Vinmec when needing advice on children's health.
