The delicate children are perhaps more fortunate than the stronger ones, for they learn early in life that they have limitations. If they commit excesses the results are so disagreeable that they soon learn to be prudent. This prudence serves as protection so long as life lasts.
The robust children on the other hand soon learn that they are strong.
They hear their parents boast about it. They get the idea that because they are strong they will always remain so, that nothing will do them any serious harm. By living up to this fallacy they undermine their const.i.tutions. Parents should teach their children about the law of compensation as applied to health, that is, he has permanent health who deserves it, and no one else. The children will not always heed true teachings after they have left the parental influence, but the parents have at least done the best they could.
The robust children have their troubles, such as chicken-pox, mumps, fevers and measles, but these are thrown off so quickly and with so little inconvenience that they are soon forgotten. As a rule the parents do not realize that these diseases are due to faulty nutrition, and that faulty nutrition is caused by improper feeding. It is generally believed that children must have all the so-called children"s diseases. Some mothers expose their infants to all of these that may happen to be in the neighborhood, hoping that the children will take them and be through with them.
Every time a child is sick it is a reflection on either the intelligence or the performance of the parents. It is natural for children to be perfectly well, and they will remain in that happy state if they are given the opportunity. If they are properly fed they will not take any of the children"s diseases in spite of repeated exposure. There is not a disease germ known to medical science strong enough to establish itself in the system of an uninjured, healthy child and do damage. The child"s health must first be impaired, through poor care, and then the so-called disease germs will find a hospitable dwelling place. If children are given natural food in normal quant.i.ties they are disease-proof. Feeding them on refined sugar and white flour products, pasteurized or sterilized milk, potatoes fried in grease pickled meats, and various other ruined foods breaks down their resistance and then they fall an easy prey to disease.
Some parents make the mistake of believing that they can feed their children improperly and ward off disease by vaccinations or inoculations of the products of disease taken from various animals. This is contrary to reason, common sense and nature and it is impossible. Any individual who is continually abused in any way, be he infant or adult, will deteriorate. If the disease is not the one that has been feared, it will be some other one.
The robust children generally develop into careless adults. That is why so many of them, in fact the vast majority, die before they are fifty years old, although they are equipped with const.i.tutions that were intended to last over a century. They are shining marks for typhoid fever, Bright"s disease, various forms of heart and liver troubles, rheumatism and pneumonia, all of which are largely caused by too hearty eating. These diseases often come without apparent warning. That is, the victims have thought themselves healthy. However, they have not known what real health is. They have been in a state of tolerable health, not suffering any very annoying aches or pains, but they have lacked the normal state of body which results in a clear, keen mind. As a rule there is enough indigestion present to cause gas in the bowels and a coated tongue. Enough food is generally eaten to produce excessive blood pressure.
The foundation for such a state of affairs is laid in childhood, yes, often before the child is born. It can readily be seen how important it is for parents to impart a little sound health information to the children. At least, they should teach them what health really is, which many people do not know.
When these strong people become sick it is often difficult, or even impossible, to do anything for them, for their habits are so gross and have gained such a mastery that the patients will not or can not change their ways.
The weaklings have a better chance to survive to old age, because many of them learn to be careful early in life. In reading the lives of eminent men who have lived long it is common to find that they were never strong.
At the age of one year the baby is generally weaned. The ordinary child needs the mother"s milk no longer, for by this time the digestive power is great enough to cope with cow"s milk and various starches. The most important problem now is how to feed the child. If no errors of importance are made it will enjoy uninterrupted growth and health. If the errors are many and serious there will surely be disease and too often the abuse is so great that death comes and ends the suffering.
Until the child reaches the age of two years the best foods are milk, whole wheat products and fruits. No other foods are necessary. The simpler the baby"s food, and the more naturally and plainly prepared, the better. Adults who overeat until they suffer from jaded appet.i.tes, may think that they need great variety of food, but it is never necessary for infants or normal adults. Milk, whole wheat and fruits contain all the elements needed for growth and strength and health. By all means feed simply. Children are perfectly satisfied with bread and milk or simply one kind of fruit at a meal, if they are properly trained. The craving for a great variety of foods at each meal is due to parental mismanagement.
Children should not be fed more than three times a day. There should be no lunching. The children will get all that is good for them, all they need in three meals. Candy should not be given between meals, and fruit is to be looked upon as a food, not as a dainty to be consumed at all hours of the day. If they are not accustomed to lunching, there will be no craving for lunches. If children are used to four or five meals a day they want them and raise annoying objections when deprived of one or two of them. It is easy to get children into bad habits. We can not blame the average mother for giving her children lunches, for she knows no better and sees other mothers doing the same.
The children who do not get lunches thrive better than those who always have candy, fruit or bread and jam at their command. It is the same with adults. In the Dakotas and Minnesota are many Scandinavians and Germans.
During the haying and harvest these people, who are naturally very strong, eat four and five times a day. The heat, the excessive amount of food and the great quant.i.ties of coffee consumed cause much sickness during and after the season of hard work and heroic eating. The so-called Americans in these communities are generally satisfied with three meals a day, and they are as well nourished and capable of working as those who eat much more.
Refined sugar made from cane and beets should be given to children sparingly. Refined sugar is the chemical which is largely responsible for the perversion of children"s tastes. A normal taste is very desirable, for it protects the possessor. A perverted taste, on the contrary, leads him into trouble. Sugar is not a good food. It is an extract. It is easy to cultivate a desire for sugar, but to people who are not accustomed to it, concentrated sugar has an unpleasant taste.
The perversion of the sense of taste, generally begun with sugar, is made worse by the use of much salt, pepper and various condiments and spices. If the child is fed on unnatural food, highly seasoned, at the age of a few years its taste is so perverted that it does not know how most of the common foods really taste, and refuses to eat the best of them when the health-destroying concoctions to which it has been accustomed can be had.
It is natural for children to relish fruit, but some are so perverted in taste that they object to a meal of it if they can get pancakes or waffles with b.u.t.ter and syrup, mushes with sugar and cream, ham or bacon with fried potatoes, or fresh bread and meat with pickles. Many parents allow their children to live on this cla.s.s of food to the exclusion of all natural foods. Children need a great deal of the natural salts, and when they live so largely on denatured foods there is always physical deterioration. It is true that to the average eye such children may appear healthy, but they are not in one-half as good physical condition as they could be.
Tea and coffee should never be given to children. They are bad enough for adults. In children they r.e.t.a.r.d bodily development. The stimulation and sedation are bad for the nervous system. Coffee is as harmful as tobacco for the growing child.
To warn against alcohol may seem foolish, but some parents really give beer and whiskey to their infants. The beer is given as a beverage and the whiskey as medicine to kill pain and soothe the children. Those who have not seen children abused in this way may find it difficult to believe that there is such a profundity of ignorance. These children die easily.
Others quiet their children with the various soothing syrups. The last a.n.a.lyses that came under my eyes showed that these remedies contained considerable opium, laudanum, morphine and other deadly poisons.
Morphine and opium are not well borne by children and these "mother"s friends" have soothed many a baby into the sleep from which there is no waking. Make it a rule to give the children no medicines, either patent or those prescribed by physicians. Please remember that any remedy that quiets a child is poisonous. Children who get proper care require no medical quieting.
Condiments should not be used. Salt is not necessary despite the popular belief to the contrary, though a small amount does no harm. Salt eating is a habit and when carried to excess it is a bad one. Salt is a good preservative, but there is little excuse for our using preserved foods extensively. There are so many foods that can be had without being preserved in this country that it would not be difficult to exclude these inferior foods from the dietary. Children whose foods are not seasoned do not desire seasoning, provided they are fed on natural foods from the start. They want the seasoning because they are taught to eat their food that way. If they are given fresh fruit every day, such as apples, oranges, cherries, grapes and berries, they get all the seasoning they need and they get it in natural form.
The objection is made that such feeding deprives children of many of the good things of life. This is not true. Natural foods taste better than the doctored ones every time. Nature imparts a flavor to food products which man has never been able to equal, to say nothing of surpa.s.sing it.
Children are taught to like abnormal foods. What is better, to give children good foods upon which they thrive, or denatured foods which taste well to a perverted palate, but are injurious?
Instead of giving sugar or candy, give raisins, figs, dates or sweet prunes. Small children may be given the strained juices of these fruits, obtained either by soaking the raw fruits several hours or by stewing them. Children who are given these fruits do not crave refined sugar.
They like these natural sugars better than the artificial extract. These sweet fruits take the place of starchy food.
Very few people know anything definite about food values. Those who have studied foods and their values in order to be able to feed children properly generally make the mistake of believing that they should have all the necessary elements at each meal in about the proper proportion.
This is a grave mistake and leads to trouble. The child needs salts, protein, sugar and fat, and in the absence of sugar some starch. Milk contains all these substances except starch. Give one fruit meal and two meals of starch daily. Milk may be given with all the meals or it may be given but once or twice. Do not overfeed on milk, for it is a rich food.
Until the child is two years old, confine it in its starch eating pretty much to the products of whole wheat. Give no white bread. White bread is an unsatisfying form of food. It is so tasteless and insipid and so deprived of the natural wheat salts that too much has to be eaten to satisfy. Children who would be satisfied with a reasonable amount of whole wheat bread eat more white bread and still do not feel satisfied.
The same is true of rice, the natural brown rice being so superior to the polished article that there is no comparison.
The bread should be toasted in the oven until it is crisp clear through, or else it should be stale. Let the bread for toast get stale, and then place it in the oven when this is cooling off. Make the slices moderately thin. This is an easy and satisfactory way of making toast.
Scorched bread--what is usually called toast--is not fit food for young children.
After the second year is completed gradually increase the variety of starch. Some of the better forms of starch that are easy to obtain are: Puffed rice or puffed wheat; brown, unpolished rice; triscuit or shredded wheat biscuit; the prepared corn and wheat flakes; baked potatoes; occasionally well cooked oatmeal or whole wheatmeal gruel.
Mushes are to be given seldom or never. Children seldom chew them well, and they require thorough mastication. The rice is not to be sugared but after the child has had enough, milk may be given. A small amount of b.u.t.ter may be served with either rice or baked potato. The cereal foods should be eaten dry. Let the children masticate them, as they should, and as they will not if the starches are moistened with milk. When they have had sufficient of these starches, and but one kind is to be served at a meal, give milk, if milk is to be a part of the meal. To observe the suggestions here given for the manner of feeding starches to children may mean the difference between success and failure in raising them. It is the little things that are important in the care of children.
The acid fruits should not be given in the meals containing starchy foods. Strong children who have plenty of opportunity to be in the fresh air and who are very active can stand this combination, but it is injurious to the nervous type. It is not a good thing to make such combinations habitually for robust children. A good meal can be made of fruit followed by milk. Do not slice the fruit, sprinkle it with sugar and cover it with cream. Give the child the fruit and nothing else.
Neither oranges nor grapefruits are to be sugared. Their flavor is better without. If the children want sweets, give them a meal of sweet fruits.
When the child is eighteen months old it should have learned to masticate well enough to eat various fruits. Apples, oranges, grapefruits, berries, cherries, grapes and melons are among the foods that may be given. If the child does not masticate well, either grind the fruit or sc.r.a.pe it very fine. The sweet fruits require so much mastication that only their juices should be fed until the child is old enough to masticate thoroughly. Bananas should also be withheld until there is no doubt about the mastication. They must be thoroughly ripe, the skin being dark in spots and the flesh firm and sweet. A green banana is very starchy, but a ripe one contains hardly any starch and digests easily.
At first the meal is fruit, followed with milk. b.u.t.termilk or clabbered milk may be subst.i.tuted for sweet milk. A little later, begin giving cottage cheese occasionally in place of milk, if the child likes it.
The succulent vegetables may be given quite early. At the age of two years stewed onions, green peas, cauliflower, egg plant and summer squash may be given. Gradually increase the variety until all the succulent vegetables are used. At first it may be necessary to mash these vegetables.
The longer children go without meat the better, and if they never acquired the meat-eating habit it would be a blessing. If the parents believe in feeding their children meat, they should wait until the little ones are at least four years old before beginning. Meats are digestible enough, but too stimulating for young people. Chicken and other fowls may be used at first, and it is best to use young birds.
Beef and pork should not be on the children"s menu. At the age of seven or eight the variety may be increased. However, parents who wish to do the best by their children will give them little or no meat. Many of the sorrows that parents suffer through their wayward children would be done away with if the young people were fed on less stimulating foods.
Eggs are better for children than meat. However, it is not necessary to give them. The children get enough milk to supply all the protein they need. Eggs may be given earlier than meat. At the age of two and one-half years an egg may be given occasionally. At three they may be given every other day, one egg at a meal. At five or six years of age, an egg may be given daily, but not more than one at a time. If they are soft boiled, three and one-half minutes will suffice. If hard boiled, cook them fifteen to twenty minutes. An egg boiled seven or eight minutes is not only hard but tough. Longer boiling makes the alb.u.min mellow. Always prepare eggs simply without using grease.
Eggs may be given in combination with either fruits or vegetables. Milk is not to be taken in the egg meal, for if such combinations are made the child gets more protein than necessary. Eggs are easy to digest and the chief objection to their free use in feeding children is that the protein intake will be too great, which causes disease.
Nuts should not be given until the children are old enough to masticate them thoroughly. The best combination is the same as for eggs. Children under six years of age should not have much more than one-half of an ounce of nut meats at a meal. The pecans are the best. Children rarely chew nuts well enough, so they should seldom be used. They may be ground very fine and made into nut b.u.t.ter, which may be subst.i.tuted for ordinary b.u.t.ter.
Give no b.u.t.ter until the child has completed his second year. The whole milk contains all the fat necessary. b.u.t.ter should always be used in moderation, for although it digests easily, it is a very concentrated food.
Again the question will be asked: "How much shall I feed my child?" I do not know, but I do know that most children get at least three times as much food as is good for them. People can establish a toleration to a certain poison, and seemingly take it with impunity for a while. Some a.r.s.enic eaters and morphine addicts take enough of their respective drugs daily to kill a dozen normal men. However, the drugs, if not stopped, always ruin the user in the end. It is the same way with food.
Children seem to establish a toleration for an excess for a shorter or longer period of time, but the overeating always produces discomfort and disease in the end, and if it is continued it will cause premature death.
About one-third or one-fourth of what children eat is needed to nourish them. The rest makes trouble. Read the chapters in this book on overeating and on normal food intake. They give valuable pointers.
Parents know their children best, and the mother can, or should be able to tell when there are signs of impending danger. If there is a decided change in the child"s disposition it generally denotes illness. Some children become very sweet when they are about to be ill, but most of them are so cranky that they make life miserable for the family. A foul, feverish breath nearly always comes before the attack. A common danger signal is a white line around the mouth. Another one is a white, pinched appearance of the nose. A flushed face is quite common. The tongue never looks normal. Except the abnormal tongue, these symptoms are not all present before every attack, but one or more of them generally are. No matter what the signs of trouble may be, stop all feeding immediately.
If this is done, the disease generally fails to develop, but if feeding is continued there is sure to be illness. These symptoms indicate that the digestion is seriously disturbed. It is folly to feed when there is an acute attack of indigestion. Besides, it is very cruel, for it causes much suffering.
Such symptoms in children are caused by improper eating, and overeating is generally the chief fault. The remedy is very simple: Feed less.
A coated tongue indicates too much food. A clean tongue shows that the digestive organs are working well. If the tongue is not smooth and a pretty pink in color, it means that the child has had too much food and the meals must be reduced in quant.i.ty until the tongue does become normal, which may take a few months in chronic cases. Peculiar little protruding spots when red and prominent on the tip and edges of the tongue indicate irritation of the alimentary tract and call for reduction of food intake.
The parents can soon learn how much to feed the children if they will be guided by these hints. Poor health in the children indicates parental failure, and this is one place where they can not afford to fail.
Parents must be honest with themselves and not put the blame where the doctors put it--on bacteria, draughts, the weather, etc. Sometimes the climate is very trying on the babies, but it never kills those who have intelligent care.
If it is found that the child next door, of the same age, eats three or four times as much as your child, do not become alarmed about your little one, but give the neighbor"s child a little silent sympathy because its parents are ignorant enough to punish the little one so cruelly.
For those who desire more definite hints regarding feeding of children, an outline has been prepared for several days. This is very simple feeding, but it is the kind of feeding that will make a rose bloom in each cheek. The child will be happy and contented and bring joy to the hearts of the parents.