•The way children eat influences their growth and health during childhood.

By MICHELO HIMAAMBO –
ZAMBIA is facing a countrywide nutrition emergency where nearly half of under five children are chronically malnourished.
There are some factors that have contributed to this situation like lack of nutritional information among mothers.
AN example is Mwape Mwenya a mother of a six month old baby girl in Chilanga Township who does not breastfeed her baby claiming she does not have time because she is a working class.
Ms Mwenya has opted to replace breast milk with some local beverages not recommended for under five children.
“I buy a case of Super shake and my baby will not want to feed from my breasts and I feel it is a good thing because she will not trouble any one when I am away from home,” Ms Mwenya says.
She says it that was easy for her to leave her baby with her mother and sisters at home because the infant does not need breast milk from her.
But according to experts, for a child, the foundation for a healthy and productive life is established in the 1,000 critical days between a mother’s pregnancy and her child’s second birth.
Proper nutrition during this critical window period is necessary to give a child the strongest start in life.
Nutrition is a basic requirement for any life and plays an important role in promoting health as well as preventing diseases in a human being.
Many reasons could lead to a weight change and malnutrition.
Moreover, malnutrition is a condition resulting from the combination of varying degrees of under or over nutrition and inflammatory.
How a child eats today would have a striking impact on her health throughout adolescence and adulthood.
Consuming nutritious foods helps children and teens grow, develop, do well academically and feel good about themselves.
Good nutrition will help prevent child and teen issues such as eating disorders, obesity, dental cavities and iron-deficiency anaemia.
As a matter of fact, good nutrition is an important part of leading a healthy lifestyle.
Combined with physical activity, diet can help to reach and maintain a healthy weight, reduce your risk of chronic diseases and promote your overall health.
Issues of breast feeding have been overlooked as mostly young mothers would want to feed their babies fancy foods like Zambia’s new beverages, chips, sweets and many other little foods.
Children require a variety of nutrient-dense foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, fish and adequate calories in order to grow and develop properly.
It is crucial that a child is consuming the essential nutrients he or she needs to grow plus Calcium is of particular importance for every neither children nor human being to be specific.
Adequate calcium intake promotes optimal bone density which would assist teen growth and reduce the risk of bone loss in later life.
The way children eat influences their growth and health during childhood, during adolescence and for the rest of their lives. However, in Zambia Nutrition issues do not only affect people in remote areas but people in urban areas.
According to nutrition in Zambia strategic approach, Zambia has the fastest growing economies in Africa and in the world, but this growth would be curtailed if the nutritional levels continue to be low.
It is estimated that the country loses more than US$186 million annually to vitamin and mineral deficiencies alone.
Zambia Civil society for Scaling up Nutrition country coordinator William Chilufya says that 60 per cent of most of the children are malnourished.
Mr Chilufya says parents should pay attention to nutrition of the child because doing so will determine the future health of the child.
“It is important to consider the power of nutrition, a person who eats healthy foods will resist most illness that will try to attack him or her because nutritious foods will help straighten the immune system making that person resistible,” Mr Chilufya said.
He says the most affected are the young people from zero up to the age of 14 will also grow up and be mothers too and there will have a high risk of contracting many diseases like HIV which may occur faster in someone with a low immune system.