Promoting Healthy Eating Habits in Children

Introduction

Children eating habits are generally very encouraging to eat more times is a day with often meals at short times and at that timings they must be fed what’s good for their healthy body and stable mind. Children becomes hungry very often and that is why it is necessary that each meal of them must consist of different types of servings including minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins and much more to keep their dietary level well balanced (BMC Public Health, 2017). Though children are very much difficult to handle with their food and demands for snacks all the time still they need to be kept feeding adequate fruits and vegetables with adding some snacks in their regular diet also since snacks are also necessary to get them ready to eat the other things (Kastorini et al. 2019). This literature review will consider the existing research on the interventions to promote the healthy eating in children in UK presenting the description about the healthy eating habits in children in UK. Some questions will be asked to them to get the desired research result and samples will be collected as data, charts, questionnaire and proofs of this research. Lastly a reflection on the overall literature review will be shown to express the thoughts, feelings and other expressions felt during this research conduction.

Part 1: Literature Review

Research Introduction

This literature review is about the intervention programmes in UK regarding the healthy eating habits in children and the challenges and issues that come during the process of making kids eat healthy. This literature review will be going to highlight all the necessary aspects of child health care and how parents can take care of the heat and diet of their children. In order to keep children under healthy diet not only parents at home but also the teachers in schools are responsible in looking after what the children are eating in school premises and how their growth is taking place (Marty et al. 2018).

So it is must to make them understand that how the healthy diet is important for them. Though they can have outside junk food and snacks certain times but there has to be a limit of that. There are some laws and acts are also regulated upon the schools and other institutions regarding the protection of children from having bad diet (Matwiejczyk et al. 2018). These regulations motivate the parents and the children themselves to understand the essence of a good and healthy dietary habit for every day (Naderer et al. 2018). The literature review mainly will be going to focus the interventions & measures to promote the good dietary and food habits in children in UK. The research will highlight the health issues and problems that have been seen rising in the recent years among children. The research aims at reviewing the techniques through which the healthy habits can be promoted among children, making the parents understand their importance.

Research Background

This literature review is conducted to reveal the determinants of having a good and healthy body and mind in children. According to the existing research, there are certain eating habits that are considered to be healthy for every child if followed properly.

Eating all varieties of vegies specially the red, orange and green coloured for more than 1 times in a meal in one day time schedule (BMC Public Health, 2017).

Having fruits containing all the minerals, vitamins and proteins such as pomegranate which is good for blood circulation in the body, tangerines or oranges due to its vitamin substances, bananas for its carbohydrates, apples and guavas for their minerals in them and much more. A whole day must be filled with more than three types of fruits in each meal (Cochrane Library, 2020).

Whole-grains, high-fibre cereals and pulses gives proteins and other essentials which are needed for the body since children’s bodies are the most growing and developing bodies so at that age whatever they eat build their body for the rest of their lives (Oliveira et al. 2019).

Least but not the last dairy products such as fat free or low fat consisted milk which is suggested by the doctors to be an inevitable and non-ignorable food for children on a daily basis (Randall et al. 2018). Adding to this, the other dairy products also provides calcium and other essentials to the body.

Industry Background

The matter of health in the people and especially in children is a very highly delegated responsibility of the government of that country or region and so the government formulates certain laws and legislations which protects and informs the people of that place about taking care of their health and how important it is to be done (The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 2018). There are laws and acts like the Health Protection Act 2004 which is the power of the local authorities and they are responsible for making people aware of the healthy habits, they provides the needed medical facilities through the public health promoting campaigns to the medical institutions and healthcare homes, they motivate people about good eating habits and supports them in adopting them (Sogari et al. 2018). The Consumer Protection laws states that each and every person should get good food and other eatables and other stuff from shops and markets (Talip et al. 2017). This law safeguards the buyers from getting bad quality food items and all the market shops must follow the standards of this guideline with any unfair practices or means.

Research Rationale

The rationale of this research says that this topic has been chosen to be researched after analysing the reports of the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit 2019 that in the current years, around 40,000 children and more then 3000 children are increasing every year have been found to be physically unfit or having diabetes. The age group of children and teenagers are the youth of any country and are supposed to be the future population so it is very important that they must be healthy and safe & sound both physically and mentally (Voinea et al. 2019). Along with physical health, the mental or it can be termed as psychological heath is vital in that population group. This research will reveal why there is bad heath condition in most of the children and what is the reason behind this. The research participants will be the parents, teachers, doctors, nurses and care givers. The main target population of this conducted research are the children since they are more prone to diseases and their heath is much more sensitive than adults. Therefore, this topic has been chosen for conducting this research as there has been seen scope of needed motivation and awareness among the children as well as their parents regarding their healthy and good eating habits.

Research Aim

The research aim will state the targets towards which the literature is pointing determining the interventions of health promotion among children in UK. The aim of this research is to express the intention or it can also be termed as aspiration of getting well-developed and good health conditions of the upcoming children and teenagers of that region. This research aims at finding new ways and techniques that will help in promoting the good healthcare habits among children in UK. Also the research aims at making the parents informed about what kind of diet will be good and useful for their kids and other family members also. So that they can be more active towards that front of food and eatables purchasing form. The aims of this research can be specifically phrased as –

To reveal different ways and techniques through which the good healthcare needs and promoting healthy dietary habits can be done

To create awareness specifically among the children in UK the value and importance of healthy eating habits and get a healthy and fit body

To make the parents understand that the health condition of all the children must be kept under good healthy daily dietary routines

To analyse the responses and views of people about current health conditions of children

Research Objective

The objective of this research is to describe and clearly state the details about the interventions that are considered regarding the promotion of healthy eating habits among children in UK. The concept of this literature is to explore the different perceptions of different people regarding the children healthcare matters (Marty et al. 2018). This research is conducted with the ultimate objective of revealing the research instruments, reviewing the existing literature, identifying one definite potential question related with the literature, a specific method to conduct the literature research and pointing out the challenges which will come in this research. The existing literature objectives of this research also consisted of the laws, regulations and acts which are made and formulated by the government to give protection in this regard. This research work is to analyse that what are the laws, rules and regulations, how effective they can be in this regard, what changes can be brought in this matter, what people think of these guidelines and what are the thoughts of the food industry regarding the laws implemented and the safety standards set by the government. The primary objective of this research is to review the promoting techniques of good and healthy eating habits among children in UK and understanding the challenges in this course of action from considering the existing literature.

Research Question

The research questions here are set up in such a manner that it will pinpoint all those facts and figures which will find out what the aims and objectives are focusing at. A questionnaire has been set up for taking feedbacks from various people depending upon the existing literature. The research questions will also focus on the issues and challenges and what people specially the research participants think of the challenges and what measures they adopt to bring solutions to those issues. The basic research question revolves around the existing literature and the most potential question asked is that what are the interventions in the techniques and ways to promote healthy eating habits among UK children and how it can be managed. The question arises that what challenges will be coming in this regard and what could be the best method that can be adopted to review this existing literature can be presented with the results as aimed for it. The research question will bring out the existing literature’s goals at which the review is targeting to and further it will enhance its potentials power to present a ray of thoughts regarding the intervention.

Research Hypothesis

This hypothesis presents a general statement that draws the expectations and sometimes the predictions which the existing literature work will be going to test during the overall process starting from the initiation to the final closure significance of this research paper. This research is conducted with the expectation that the results of this research will bring out the current situation of the health care scenario of children and the study will also present that what type of eating habits are children having and what the dietary habit of them should be implemented further for developing the health care status of children. This research has been conducted with the target to understand the details about the eating habits of children and how is it affecting the daily routine and health issues that are recently increasing in their number. What are the school arrangements to look after and take care of the children and also what awareness the teaching lessons are conveying to the children regarding their eating and dietary routines? The research review here will suggest some methods that can be applied in the literature for fulfilling the motive to intervene the health promotion among UK children.

Research Significance

The significance of this research paper will clarify all the details of the overall procedure regarding this topic. Also to include, that, this significance will be contributing towards the betterment of the child care and their healthy dietary habits. The problems which arose during the furnishing of this research paper will be solved by better solutions as compared with the past solutions. The laws that are set up by the government are made to protect the child care and they did the same but still the recent studies showed that the percentage of child health and fitness has been decreasing from the past years but this research result might help in that arena too.

Part 2: Reflective Notes

The reflection here after analysing that the existing literature about the intervention programs related to the healthy eating habits among children in UK can be said that there are so many more researches have been done in this regards before. All these researches have been identified to get the concept of what type of intervention programs are required to accomplish the literature goals. The first big question asked in this literature review is that what can be the research questions while preparing this writing since in the health hazard regards, lots of researches have various type of questions. Some of the questions can be like- how much the programs that are conducted are effective n people especially on children and their parents. The questions should revolve around the health care facilities and support to the children and promoting the best ways to develop a healthy and fit body. The second big question arising is what method will work best to conduct this research where it can be said that the past reviews and literatures have mainly used the secondary research methods where the pre-defined reports and proofs are found. But in this review the best can be suggested a the primary method since it will gather what people think in the present time about the intervention programs, how much they are working, are the common people getting all the facilities from these intervention programs what they should get or they just played normal. On second preference, the secondary method will also add to the information needed and collected for the literature reviewing so that after measuring all the evidences, theories and findings, the result can be obtained. The previous research papers can be investigated to understand the effectiveness of such type of literatures.

Like in all other literature works , in this existing one also, there are some challenges that were found while gathering the data and information since while taking primary data, people were not really interested in talking and some were not comfortable to share details. These kinds of challenges can be sorted with proper interviews regarding the review. The third big question that comes up is about the challenges where some are found to be ethical. Ethical challenges came during questioning of the healthcare professional since they all are bound to protect the confidentiality and information of the patients and people. So that has been the main challenge and to add on this some ethical regulations which are restrictive in nature are preventing from indulging deep inside among the previous records and research proofs due to protection issues. One more challenges faced while conducting the research is the obligations of the practical challenges where people became difficult to talk and share their experiences. Most of the previous research papers have also revealed challenges in interviewing people and in this review also the same challenge goes on. The main reason behind this is people are not comfortable while they talk about such type of health issues as they fund it to be private and revealing them might be a cause of privacy matter.

Conclusion

This research paper showed that how a proper health care and an appropriate dietary habit are important for children to be physically and mentally fit. Children eating habits are generally very encouraging to eat more times is a day with often meals at short times and at that timings they must be fed what’s good for their healthy body and stable mind. The research hypothesis is a general statement which will present the expectations and sometimes the predictions which this research work will be going to test during the overall process starting from the initiation to the final closure significance of this research paper. There are laws and acts like the Health Protection Act 2004 which is the power of the local authorities and they are responsible for making people aware of the healthy habits, they provides medical objects and substances to the medical institutions and healthcare homes, they motivate people about good eating habits and supports them in adopting them. Lastly it can be concluded that this research will be very beneficial for the future of children healthcare and good food eating habits.

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References

BMC Public Health, 2017. How effective are family-based and institutional nutrition interventions in improving children’s diet and health? A systematic review, available at: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4795-5

Cochrane Library, 2020. Strategies to improve the implementation of healthy eating, physical activity and obesity prevention policies, practices or programmes within childcare service, available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6458009/

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Talip, T., Serudin, R., Noor, S. and Tuah, N., 2017. Qualitative study of eating habits in Bruneian primary school children. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 26(6), pp.1113-1118.

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