With the arrival of weight loss diets in adults and Light products, skimmed and with a decrease in fat ("30% less fat", "0% fat" and others) to his credit carbohydrates and especially Proteins have gained fame while fats have been practically demonized.
This makes it common to hear mothers phrases like "come, honey, finish the chicken that has a lot of protein", "leave the bread and eat the ham" or "if you're not hungry at least eat a yogurt" and the result is that Babies and children take too much protein.
We are very used to the fact that the second course is always meat, fish or eggs and that the dessert is some dairy. This helps raise the protein intake above recommended and move other foods such as fruit or vegetables from the diet.
And is it bad to take too much protein?
Well yes, I'm afraid so. Excess protein causes babies' liver and kidneys to be overloaded of work, which does not matter.
Proteins should account for approximately 10-15% of the diet and children are taking a much higher percentage. The leftover proteins are transformed into fat, which is stored as cells (adipocytes) and it is known that in adulthood, obesity is given by the increase in adipocyte size. The more we have, the more we can gain weight.
In other words, when we are little, we form the adiposites that will spend the rest of our life with us. The more we form, the more obese we can be of greater age (more tendency to obesity we will have) because in adulthood there are no new adiposites, but the ones we have increase in size.
On the other hand an excess of proteins acidifies the blood. To rebalance the pH of it the bones are demineralized by releasing calcium to the bloodstream
The proteins our children take are mostly of animal origin. This makes a greater contribution of calories, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium recommended.
In fact, proteins should be 65% of animal origin and 35% of vegetable origin (if legumes, rice and vegetables are mixed in a meal, proteins complement each other and have a biological value equivalent to that of animal protein).
How many are "too many proteins"?
WHO and the Nutrition Committee of the American Academy of Medicine (Food and Nutrition Board) recommend a consumption of 1.6 g / kg / day of protein or 20 g / day in babies between 6 and 12 months of age and It is estimated that they may be taking about 30 g / day.
Children between 2 and 5 years old, who need even less protein than babies because they no longer have to grow so much (they need between 14.5 and 16 grams of protein a day) are taking no less than 65 grams daily.
Children between 6 and 9 years old, who need a daily amount of about 19 grams are taking about 77 grams (more than triple).
What can you do about it?
Well, try to eat less protein, than seeing how most children eat, the chances are that we are all passing:
- They do not need to eat meat, fish or egg for lunch and dinner. Is enough that they only eat one of these foods once a day.
In short, we can summarize that we are currently giving our children, according to their age, double and even triple the protein you really need. Knowing the data we can do something to remedy it and try to make the menu more balanced.
Photos | Flickr (Emborg), Flickr (chadmiller)
In Babies and more | Nourish the baby's brain: proteins, legumes, a great source of protein for our children
