It is in childhood that the foundation for the health or ills of life are laid, and more can be accomplished by proper feeding of the boys and girls while yet in the developmental stage than in after years when the seeds of ill health have long been sown and nature has begun to take her toll. Careful feeding can do much to prevent the digestive upsets and respiratory troubles so common among children and will lay a foundation for health and strength in after life that means more than any heritage of lands or gold.

Normal Physical Growth

We cannot in our limited space present an exhaustive treatise on this important phase of dietetics, but we can lay down a few principles that may serve as a helpful guide in the important work of supplying to the child the food which will yield happy results in the way of a normal physical growth. The body is made up of the food supplied to it. This food should be complete, untainted by impurities introduced from without or manufactured from within.

Regularity

Perhaps one of the most important things to be made emphatic is the necessity for regularity in feeding with ample length of time between meals for the stomach to entirely empty itself. We find that even infants do much better when fed every three or four hours, than when fed every two hours as has so commonly been done. They gain in weight more rapidly, have less colic, and are happier in every way.

A Precaution

When it is necessary to feed babies artificially, it is safer to use only sterilized milk. It has been found too that the boiling of milk greatly increases its digestibility*. However, if the milk is boiled or even pasteurized, it is of the greatest importance that these babies receive in addition to their milk, at least an ounce of orange juice daily; a neglect of this precaution often being a factor in nutritional disturbances, such as scurvy, eczema, rickets, etc. (See Chapter IX (Vitamines).) Orange juice may be introduced carefully into their diet at any time after the age of one month, and it is often a valuable addition to the diet of even a nursing infant.

After Seven Months

If the baby does not take orange juice well, or if this fruit is difficult to obtain, the necessary vitamines may be supplied in potato water or in other vegetable broths. Other fruit juices may be used as lemon juice or grape fruit juice.

It is well after the age of seven months to gradually introduce into the diet additional foods as vegetable broths and purees, potato gruel and cereal gruels. To make the cereal gruels, the cereals should, after thorough cooking, be put through a colander or strainer, and to the jelly-like mass left should be added milk (not cream) to make it the consistency of gruel. Add no sugar.

The Second Year

A little later or by the age of nine months, vegetable purees, oven toast, hard crackers and scraped apple or apple sauce should be given; also other fruit purees and fruit juices. Early in the second year the child should begin to have green vegetables as spinach, green peas, string beans, etc. These should be pureed at first, but soon the child may be taught to masticate thoroughly the more tender cellulose, so that tender, carefully cooked vegetables may be given without being strained or pureed. These vegetables should be cooked with due care to preserve the vitamines. (See Chapter XIV (A Universal Food)).

*According to Dennett the milk or milk mixture, the proportion depending upon the baby's age, should be boiled vigorously for three minutes, stirring well to prevent the formation of a scum. The curds formed from this milk are fine and much like those of mother's milk, and when properly supplemented with orange juice and vegetable broths are not constipating.

The sooner after the age of twelve months that children are put on three meals a day the better. If anything is given between meals it should be fruit or a drink of milk. Even this extra, if allowed, should be given at the same hour every day with unvarying regularity. One mistake that is often made is in keeping children too long on milk alone, some babies being nursed into the second year or kept upon the bottle long after they should be having a greater variety of food.

A Mistake

The cereals will during the second year have an important place in the diet of the child along with milk toast, and stale bread and milk. In the beginning of the second year well cooked cereals may be given the child without the preparatory process of straining. These cereals should be thoroughly cooked. The mistake is often made of adding sugar to the cereal, but the child should learn from the first to take cereal and milk without sugar. Great harm is done by educating children to like sugar in this way. Never at any time should the combination of milk and sugar be allowed on cereal, whether gruel or mush.

Bread should be whole wheat and graham, or made from other whole grains, and should be at least thirty-six hours old. All toast given the child, whether dry or as milk toast, should be in the form of oven toast, hard clear through, with more than merely a superficial browning.

Sweets

Artificial sweets should be limited. (See Chapter IX (Vitamines), p. 91. Quot. from Dr. Kerley.) It were better for any child if he need never know of the existence of cake, pie, ice cream and ordinary desserts. It is only as a result of education that children acquire the sweet tooth so common among them. But it can hardly be hoped that the ideal will be reached - there are too many loving friends to teach our children to like these things for us to expect to be able to keep sweets entirely away from them. If the sweets could be limited to their proper place and to that alone, no harm perhaps might be done, but with the knowledge of the delight to the palate comes the difficulty of teaching proper control and moderation. However, this must be done and our aim as parents must be, if not to restrict entirely, to limit candy and other sweets to the proper time, place and amount. Much can be done in this direction, and it is surprising how much co-operation can be elicited from the little folks if they are taught in the interesting way that it is possible for them to be taught, the importance of caring for the body machine as carefully as father looks after his watch or his automobile.