And do adults need to teach children to vegetarianism - the doctor answers
How important is protein for children in the morning? My daughter has a vegetarian teacher who has extended his food austerity to breakfast at school. Breakfast consists of porridge, bread, honey, drink (compote) and fruit, i.e. there is no egg, no cottage cheese, no milk. The parental initiative would like to change this, but there is not enough qualified and well-reasoned information on this problem. Could you give an explanation on this problem, maybe not everything is so sad with such a diet and there is no need to worry?
From correspondence with readers
Why breakfast is so important for kids
There are many studies, at the highest level (meta-analyzes), that support a direct link between not eating breakfast in childhood and increased risk obesity development and metabolic syndrome in adulthood.
That is, breakfast is required.
Concerning squirrel, then most experts also advise adding it to all meals. There are discussions about the quantity and quality of this element, what should be the protein - animal or vegetable. But most scholars do not dispute the importance.
Below are links demonstrating that children who have used breakfast with a normal or high amount of protein there were better results in terms of the duration of satiety until the next meal, better results in assessing mood, intelligence and general tone. I must say that there are studies that did not reveal a significant difference. But this is a common story in modern science. Therefore, we choose those that do not contradict the principles of physiology.
What's the problem with vegetarian breakfasts at school
In your situation, an adult, physically fit vegetarian teacher extends his principles to more the emerging organisms of students, does not take into account the needs of growing organisms exposed to great emotional loads.
Besides, vegetarianism always requires compensation for deficient micronutrientswho always accompany the adherents of this food culture. Simply put, you always have to drink vitamins to feel good.
Even a very thoughtful teacher cannot assess all of the children's needs for food.
Therefore, nutritional standards for nutrition in schools have been developed, on which the teams are working specialists in order to take into account a lot of nuances and prevent any negative consequences of incorrect nutrition.
I would warn the parents and leaders of this school against non-harmless protein-free breakfasts for children, as it is not physiological and can contribute to the development pathological side effects from easily compensated to severe.
Here are some links you can Google the research yourself if you want.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30865968/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263815/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5320397/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25995282/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18346309/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24775601/
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