Nutrition as primary prevention of preschool children

The subject of my bachelor project is following: "Nutrition as primary prevention of preschool children". Nutrition, as an important determinant of health, influence the state of health of the organism significantly. On one hand, it could be the nourishment what can cause a negative impact on our health and support an emergence of variety of diseases, primarily those with noninfectious origin. On the other hand, nutrition could act as a prevention for all of these diseases (1). The most unpropitious result of these diseases belongs to cardiovascular and tumorous illnesses, which are the most common cause of death in the Czech Republic. These already mentioned diseases are not typical for preschool children, however, the cruicial factor is that the appeal to nourishment as a primary prevention since this age could decreased the prevalence of these diseases in posterior age (2). Childhood is the time when all habits, and especially eating habits, are learned, when bone tissue is founded, and the organism is intesively growing, which is important because it ifluence the state of health not only in childhood, but certainly in adulthood (3). Nourishment is related to development of illnesses so typical for childhood. The example is obesity; its prevalence constantly increases hand to hand with a risk of development of other very serious diseases, such as above mentioned cardiovascular illnesses or Diabetes Mellitus II. (4). This paper is devided to a theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part, firstly, there are explained several basic terms regarding to the main theme of this paper. Forth, it devote to the overall energy intake and also to specific macronutrients and micronutrients including their recommended daily dose for preschool children and the risks threatening when a deficit or an abundance of these nutrients occure. Next chapters deal with individual parts of food pyramid and with a composition of single dishes consumed during the day. Included are also informations about drinking regime and the negative impact of sweetened drinks on health of the organism. The penultimate part decribes an influence of family on children's nourishment because it is the parents who plays the major part on their children's eating habits (5). The last area, included in the theoretical part, deals with problems of diseases based on faulty diet occuring in preschool- aged children. The practical part deals with a qualitative research. The goal of my research was to map out the eating habits by preschool children. The following questions were chosen: 1. What informations about priciples of healthy eating have mothers of the surveyed file? 2. What foodstuff, in view of racional children nourishment, do the children consume? 3. What is the eating regime of this surveyed file in comparison to principles of healthy nourishment? The data collection was done by a form of semistructured interviews; these were realized with mothers of preschool children attending a kindergarten in Kaplice. In total, 14 interviews were performed. The realized interviews were transcribed in to a written form and then coded and categorized with a method called "paper and pencil." From results ensue that the majority of mothers has correct but only superficial informations about healthy nourishment. In view of individual groceries in children's nutrition, white pastry prevail and in contrary, there is a lack of vegetable and fishes. Sweetened drinks are consumed only sporadicaly but sweets and candies are eaten every day by a majority of surveyed children. Frequency of consuming is correct by a majority, but the problem is in an inadequate interval between the last meal and sleeping. There is also a failure in composition of few of the dishes. The drinking regime is adequate by a majority of children. In view of a high importance of nourishment as a primary prevention of many diseases, I would recommend to increase the erudition of mother