Impact of Convenience Foods on Child Nutrition and Health

This report delves into the effects of convenience foods on child nutrition, highlighting the health risks associated with their consumption, such as obesity and inadequate nutritional value. It discusses the dietary needs of children aged 2-11, emphasizing the importance of nutrient-dense foods like proteins, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy. The report also examines the impact of nutrition deficiency, particularly in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, linking it to factors like dispossession and racism. It explores the consequences of poor diet, including malnutrition and chronic diseases, and discusses the need for interventions and programs to improve nutritional intake and health outcomes within these communities. The report underscores the importance of addressing both over-nutrition and under-nutrition to promote the well-being of children.

Running head: NUTRITION
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Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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Part 1
Question 1
With the evolving world, the generation is also evolving rapidly and with this rapid
growth, the consumption process of the human kind has changed immensely. In order to meet the
requirements of an individual’s needs of consumption, development of processed foods are
prepared, often termed as Convenience Food or Tertiary Processed Food. Examples of such are
frozen foods, ready to eat foods, cake mixes and many more. These foods do not require any
preparation time and can be directly consumed, thus the term “Convenience”. Apart from saving
time and making life easy, the convenience foods are of major health concern for both adults and
children. As the foods are prepared and processed in factories, they need to be packaged before
human consumption. This packaging is usually done using Plastic, which is a major threat to the
environment. In order to meet the food’s flavors and taste requirement of humans, several kinds
of food additives, food flavors and food preservatives are added. The compositions of these
processed foods are rich in fats, carbohydrates, sugar and salt, for increasing the flavors. These
artificial addition of components in food and consumption of these foods results in obesity and
other health care problems. The reason behind addition of these additional components is to
increase the appealing behavior of food to humans and the selling of the products.
Examples of convenience foods are Breakfast Cereals, Frozen Vegetables, Canned Fruits,
Cheese, Savory Snacks, Microwave Meals and many more.
Health Risks due to Convenience Foods:
Convenience food’s composition of excess chemically modified sugar, salt, fats and

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carbohydrates are a vital cause of occurring health problems in the society. Some of the major
health risks are mentioned below:
 Inadequacy of Nutritional values: Processing of the foods often results in destroying the
nutritional value of the food. Therefore, the processed foods have low nutritional value
than the unprocessed ones. In the production process of convenience foods, the synthetic
nutrients (nutrients developed in laboratory) are added, instead of naturally occurring
nutrients. These synthetic nutrients are not the efficient replacement of the naturally
found nutrients in plants and animals. Addition of these synthetic nutrients results in the
destruction of the quality of foods.
 Composition of Artificial Ingredients: The main objective behind producing convenience
foods is to make profit out of it and in order to do so, the producers or the manufacturers
often add artificial ingredients (produced in laboratory and are chemically modified) to
enhance the taste and flavor of the food. The most common artificial ingredients are Food
Preservatives (to increase the lifetime of food), Colorings (to give food an attractive
color), Flavorings (to give food a unique flavor) and Texturants (to give food its perfect
texture).
 Over consumption: The convenience foods are designed for over consumption. The
addition of different chemically modified substances to enhance the taste and smell of the
foods, results in satisfying the taste buds of humans, therefore resulting in over
consumption. Over consumption further leads to Obesity and other health care related
issues.
Question 2
Dietary desires of the healthy children aged a pair of years through eleven years archaic

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is referred to “Nutrition” . Proper dietary routines boosts the child’s ability to develop and learn.
It helps in making children less prone to weight related disorders and infections. This may be
done if the adults strictly follow some regular essential dietary routine for their children. The
dietary routine must include nutritional and healthy foods of super molecule, restricted food,
consumption of milk and water rather than chemically modified liquids and many more. Since
kids younger than a pair of years archaic and kids over the age of eleven years archaic have
distinctive biological process necessities and considerations, the main target of this outline is
totally on healthy kids aged a pair of two eleven years. Maintenance of proper diet since birth
helps in avoiding the risks of overweight and obesity. Although the amount of the dietary foods
must be concerned to neglect the fatal reactions of over eating. The diet chart should be
maintained thoroughly in order to have a beneficial impact of healthy foods on the lives of
children.
Thus in order to avoid the harmful effects of convenience foods on children, nutrient
dense foods should be replaced with the processed foods in a child’s diet. Examples of such
replacements are:
Foods rich in Proteins – Proteins provide energy to help the organs to function more
efficiently in children. Consumption of proteins are considered to be very healthy, examples are -
Sea Foods, eggs, beans, lean poultry and meat, unsalted seeds and nuts, Greek Yoghurt, milk,
broccoli, cottage cheese and many more.
Foods with Healthy Fats – Fats coming from animal sources and plant sources are
considered healthy out of which mono-saturated and poly-saturated fats are the healthiest. Mono-
saturated Fat (olives, avocadoes, nuts, peanut butter and many more) & Poly-saturated Fat

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(Soybean, soymilk, walnuts, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds, tofu and many more).
Fruits – Fruits are the natural food sources and are considered to be the healthiest because
of the presence of essential nutrients. Adults should motivate their children to consume more
fruits since the beginning of their birth. Nature has provided many kinds of fruits and with the
development of technology the preservation of fruits for longer period of time has become
possible. Adults should provide 100% pure fruits and juices extracted from fresh fruits, because
not only the fruits boosts the immunity of the children but also speeds the process of growth and
development. Fruits like apples, bananas, pomegranate, grapes have remarkable effects on the
body’s immune system.
Vegetables – Natural and efficient nutrients like potassium, vitamins, fibres, folic acid
(folate) and many more comes from the vegetables. Consumption of these nutrients helps in
boosting the growth and development of the children. Vegetables as broccoli, spinach,
ladyfingers, tomatoes, peas, gourd, and many more are rich in nutrients, thus helps in maintain
the balance of the functions of the organs.
Grains - Whole-wheat grains are enriched with nutrients. Oatmeal, quinoa, popcorn are
other grains which have a benefit effect on the body. Refined grains are not advised to the
children.
Dairy – Milk and other dairy products are rich in Calcium, which helps in the formation
of bones and teeth. Consumption of proper amount of dairy products is very useful in increasing
the strength of the body.

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Part 2
Nutrition is what the body consumes in order to function properly and efficiently. By
proper and efficient nutrition, it means to have all the essential nutrients in required amounts.
Lack of nutritional food intake will result in severe immunity related disorders, difficulty in
physical and mental development, and improper functioning of organs and tissues. One of the
severe effects of nutrition deficiency is Weight Loss. While speaking of Weight Loss, the ghastly
deficiencies faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are of utmost important.
Early childhood could be a crucial amount that may embrace a number of nutritional and social
issues in the entire journey of life.
In Australia, economically prosperous and one of the healthy nation, Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children are the victims of severe health disorders, disadvantage, and
incapacity like several developing nations. There are three main reasons which contribute to
severe health issues, they are dispossession, dis empowerment, and racism. The native children
have double disadvantages in terms of nutritional and psychological health, due to the prevailing
physical, economical and social factors. The major consequences of Nutrition Deficiency are
improper functioning of the organs and instability in the human’s internal and external
environment.
Apart from nutritional deficiency, some significant risk factors affect the nutrient
consumption of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children. Obesity, malnutrition,
cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol, type2 diabetes, chronic disease and high blood pressure
are the results of poor diet. In case of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children, obesity
is not that common because of less food intake. The major concern of the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait islander children is Malnutrition because less than zero intake. Aboriginal and Torres Strait

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inhabitant individuals still experience the least amount of nutrition intake of all population teams
in Australia. Lack of nutrients related severe diseases - like upset, poly genetic disorder, chronic
renal disorder and a few cancers are answerable for a minimum of seventy five per cent of the
death and living ratio between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and alternative Australians.
Health complications of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders adults and children are heart
diseases because of complexity in circulatory system, kidney failure, mental ailments, respiratory
diseases, rheumatic and hypertensive diseases and cataracts. Communicable diseases also play an
important role in nutritional deficiency, diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C virus,
and syphilis and gonococcus infections.
The importance of nutrition among the group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant
children is exhibited by deficiency diseases, which includes both over-nutrition (convenience
foods are over consumed) and under-nutrition (nutritional foods are less consumed). Only a few
Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant people consumed required amounts of nutritional foods in
comparing with the instructions of the Australian Dietary Charts. Many ancient, social,
economical, physical and geographic components assist to this poor quality and quantity of diet
and nutritional food security consumed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant individuals.
The consequences of such poor quality and quantity of nutritional foods and diet is exhibited by
poor gestation results and severe deficiency diseases in children. Serious issues like low birth
weight, poor organ development and poor kid growth are still experienced in the children of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant communities.
Rates of malnourished, overweight, and obesity disproportionately affect autochthonous
folks compared with non-Indigenous folks across Australia. Similarly, eight % of Aboriginal and
sound denizen kids 2-14 years recent square measure malnourished, and thirty % square measure

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overweight obese. This implies the need of preventative efforts targeted towards Aboriginal and
sound denizen kids, reducing weight problems and therefore the burden of chronic sickness.
Eighty-three per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant children aged between 0-
3 years had been provided with mother’s milk, compared with ninety three per cent of non-
Indigenous youngsters of these World Health Organization were breastfed, Aboriginal and
Torres Strait children were less confused than non-Indigenous children of being fed mother’s
milk for more than twelve months. The average consumption of dairy food elements for every
age group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant individuals, with the exception of children
of age between 2-3 years and women of age between 4-8 years, was importantly under the
various suggest variety of consumption.
On average, Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant individuals two years and over
reported intense a median of almost seventy five grams of free sugars per day, that is relatively
equal to nearly fifty per cent quite World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, which
lead to the weakness of bones and disturbing of digestive system. Aboriginal and Torres Strait
inhabitant individuals in remote areas were less astonished to run out of food than the non
Indigenous people. Programs to enhance food provide have enclosed attention on food outlets;
native productivity of food, like organizations and institutes, food provided by Aboriginal and
Torres Strait inhabitant and community organizations and aids of food. The nutritional levels of
the foods provided by the different organizations, institutes and communities were thoroughly
checked before being distributed in the rural and remote ares.
The main objective behind the nutrition interventions and nutritional campaigns is to
provide resources, to support and to educate Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant. Since ages

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the efforts have been applied to embrace the nutritional quality and quantity of the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait inhabitant and certain policies and strategies are still being taken to improve the
health care issue of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant. The development of chemically
modified foods which are rich in essential nutrients have bought us a step closer to enhance and
secure the lack of nutrition levels and to provide effective treatment towards various nutrition
related sickness for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant.
The past mistakes of not providing resources of nutritional foods and security to the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait inhabitant have lead to severe consequences for every generation of
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community. In recent years, to compensate for the past mistakes
many policies and campaigns are organized to help and address the issues of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait inhabitant.