The Ministry of Health and Healing

The Child’s Diet

The best food for the infant is breast milk, the food that nature provides. Of this it should not be needlessly deprived. It is a heartless thing for a mother, for the sake of convenience or social enjoyment, to free herself from the tender office of nursing her little one. MHH 216.6

The mother who permits her child to be nourished by another should consider well what the result may be. To a greater or less degree the nurse imparts her own temper and temperament to the nursing child. MHH 216.7

The importance of training children to right habits of diet can hardly be overestimated. The little ones need to learn that they eat to live, not live to eat. The training should begin with the infant in its mother’s arms. The child MHH 216.8

should be given food only at regular intervals, and less frequently as it grows older. It should not be given sweets, or the food of older persons, which it is unable to digest. Care and regularity in the feeding of infants will not only promote health, and thus tend to make them quiet and sweet-tempered, it will lay the foundation of habits that will be a blessing to them in after years. MHH 217.1

As children emerge from babyhood, great care should still be taken in educating their tastes and appetite. Often they are permitted to eat what they choose and when they choose, without reference to health. The pains and money so often lavished upon unwholesome delicacies lead the young to think that the highest object in life, and that which yields the greatest amount of happiness, is to be able to indulge the appetite. The result of this training is gluttony, then comes sickness, which is usually followed by dosing with poisonous drugs. MHH 217.2

Parents should train the appetites of their children and not permit the use of unwholesome foods. But in the effort to regulate the diet, they should be careful not to err in requiring children to eat that which is distasteful, or to eat more than is needed. Children have rights, they have preferences, and when these preferences are reasonable they should be respected. MHH 217.3

Regularity in eating should be carefully observed. Nothing should be eaten between meals—no confectionery, nuts, fruits, or food of any kind. Irregularities in eating destroy the healthful tone of the digestive organs, to the detriment of health and cheerfulness. And when the children come to the table, they do not relish wholesome food; their appetites crave that which is hurtful for them. MHH 217.4

Mothers who gratify the desires of their children at the expense of health and happy tempers are sowing seeds of evil that will spring up and bear fruit. Self-indulgence grows with the growth of the little ones, and both mental and physical vigor are sacrificed. Mothers who do this work reap with bitterness the seed they have sown. They see their children grow up unfitted in mind and character to act a noble and useful part in society or in the home. The spiritual as well as the mental and physical powers suffer under the influence of unhealthful food. The conscience becomes insensitive, and the susceptibility to good impressions is impaired. MHH 217.5

While the children should be taught to control the appetite and to eat with reference to health, make it plain that they are denying themselves only that which would do them harm. They give up hurtful things for something better. Let the table be made inviting and attractive, as it is supplied with the good things that God has so bountifully bestowed. Make mealtime a cheerful, happy time. As we enjoy the gifts of God, let us respond by grateful praise to the Giver. MHH 217.6