To Encourage Mastication

Above all things do not serve your children hot fresh bread, griddle cakes, fried potatoes, richly seasoned foods of any kind.

Give them plenty of food requiring thorough mastication as hardtack, oven toast, etc. Teach them to masticate thoroughly.

Impress upon their minds that if they are to have beautiful, sound teeth, these teeth must be exercised as well as kept clean. Tell them how the starch is changed to sugar in the mouth. Let them become interested in seeing how much sugar they can manufacture out of a crust of bread and how sweet the sugar will taste. The social element at meal time may be one of the best safeguards against too rapid eating and improper mastication.

We quote the following:

"After the teeth begin to come children should be given all their starchy food in as hard a form as possible and the per cent of starch limited.

"The preponderance of the carbohydrates in the diet is one of the causes of so many children entering the kindergarten with their teeth broken down to the gums and small undersized jaws. One of our responsibilities is spreading the knowledge that no demineralized white bread or crackers should ever be given to a child under five. We not only need all the lime salts contained in the dark breads to build the teeth and bones, but we need exercise to develop the jaws.

"Children who eat tough bran bread made into toast instead of mush and who do not drink while eating usually get the proper development of the jaws." - M. Evangeline Jordan, D. D. S., in California State Health Bulletin.

Avoid

Tea and coffee must never be allowed, even cocoa should be kept away from them. Children are much better off without meat and meat broths with their protein wastes. It is well for the child up to the age of four or five years to eat by himself and not at the family table unless the other members of the household can themselves co-operate with the small boy or girl in eating for the body strength and health. Usually the evening dinner is later than the child should take his evening meal and it becomes a simple matter to serve his simple meal at 5:30 and his appetite is entirely satisfied when an hour later his elders partake of theirs.

Co-Operation Between Meals

Never should food be allowed between meals. If the hungry boy waits until meal time he will eat at the right time the food he needs, and care much less about the sweet after-part. Plain food will taste good and be quite satisfactory, and the supply taken will be sufficient to last until the next regular meal. If the boy after school must have something to "stay his stomach" until supper time, let it be an apple or other fruit and this the regular daily plan, instead of a spasmodic one.

Amount Of Food Needed By Child

During the period of growth and development much more food is needed per pound of body weight than after maturity is reached. It is impossible to say how much food a growing child may need. It all depends upon the activity of the child and the rapidity with which new tissues are formed. The child who cares little for vigorous play but enjoys his books, should eat less food than the one who plays hard all day. Other things being equal, the child of phlegmatic temperament will need less food than the one who is of a more nervous, impulsive type. The amount of food needed depends upon tissue activity and this varies with individual temperament. Boys, because of greater muscular activity, need more food than do girls.

Body Demands Great

Every mother should see that her child gets active physical exercise daily. Then if the boy or girl is fed regularly, does not eat between meals, eats wholesome food, prepared with due regard for hygienic principles as outlined above, the appetite will be one of the best guides as to the amount of food required.

A careful estimate for a few weeks of the calories taken by the child will be of advantage to the mother from an educational standpoint, and will permit her to study and to determine the results when the daily amount in food units is decreased or increased for a time.

It should be remembered that it is not bulk so much as concentration of food that determines its caloric value. And also that the candy or knick-knack taken between meals may increase the total food value above actual body requirement, even though the child eats a comparatively small amount of food at mealtime.

Do not underfeed your children. They must be properly and sufficiently nourished. Their body demands are great and must be supplied, but they can have enough food without that which will handicap rather than help the body in its work. Of protein they must have an ample amount, of carbohydrate and fat a normal supply, but they may get this without excess and with every advantage to their growing needs. Great danger lies in a diet for them top-heavy in fats and carbohydrates with often not enough protein. The results of such as unbalanced diet are serious and parents should know how to avoid a mistake which is far too common. Some sweets they should have, but the intelligent mother having mastered the important principles of nutrition, will supply these in a simple, not too concentrated a form and combined in a healthful way. She will be teacher as well as mother, and will teach her boys and girls that the most wonderful, the most manly, womanly thing they can do is to develop strong, healthy, normal body machines that will make of them strong, noble men and women, able always to do well their part and to make a success of life.

"The mother who holds herself responsible for what her child shall wear and yet does not feel that she is answerable for what he shall eat, shows that she regards his outer appearance more than his health of body or moral strength.""

- Elizabeth Harrison.

"In these years of infancy and childhood, food and nourishment are of special moment; not alone for the time, but also for the child's future life. Through its diet, a child may grow up to be - in the business of life - idle or industrious, dull or lively, weak or strong." - Froebel.