The Interrelationship Between Health, Safety and Nutrition in Children

The interrelationship between health, safety, and nutrition regarding children is very important. Understanding certain guidelines, and potential hazardous conditions can help prevent physical and emotional incidents.
Some preventive health care practices that people can take are avoidance of smoke and substance abuse such as drugs and alcohol, eat a healthy diet low in fat, exercise routinely, brush teeth regularly, and frequently washing your hands. To help promote good health, individuals must realize that to a certain extent, that they can prevent certain health problems. Instilling healthy habits and practices in children can help prevent accidents due to lack of proper nutrition all the way to making sure they wear a safety helmet when riding their bicycle. It has been documented by the World Health Organization that health is a state or quality of total physical, mental, and social well-being.

Some factors that may affect childrens health are heredity and the environment. Through heredity, this is when the childs characteristics are transmitted from the parents to their children at the time of conception to determine genetic traits. Understanding a childs heredity can help determine the predisposition of health problems including heart disease, cancer, allergies, etc. Environment can play an equally important part in a childs development. The environment includes physical, social, economic, and cultural factors. These factors often influence how children think, perceive, and act on certain situations in their surroundings. There are some positive environmental factors that can affect children such as good dietary habits, recreation with regular exercise and adequate rest, an access to medical and dental care, limited stress, and a safe and clean place for children, also opportunities to form stable and respectful relationships.

Childrens safety is very important. Safety is the behavior and practices that protect children from risks or injury. Controlling safe environments for children such as having developmentally appropriate equipment, will help prevent accidents. Even minor accidents have immediate effects on a childs health. It is imperative that adults scan the area of which children are to eliminate and put away hazardous materials out of reach of young children. So strict monitoring is needed. Another form of protection is setting rules and limitations. Rules help children to learn what is expected, and ensures safety.

Nutrition is defined as all processes used by a child to take in food and to digest it, absorb, transport, utilize, and excrete food substances. The substances found in foods are called nutrients. Eating food is a very important component of life. Eating proper foods that ensure good nutrients increases a childs energy, growth and development, normal behavior, resistance to illness and infection, and tissue repair. The intake of nutrients affects the behaviors of children. A child who is well nourished is usually more alert and attentive, and has better physical and learning experiences. The way a child responds to resistance of illnesses, proper nutrition plays an important part. Well nourished children are less likely become ill, and when they are ill recovery is quicker.

All in all, health, safety, and nutrition play pertinent roles with each other. The way a child feels in each role is dependant upon the others. Each role affects the other. If a child becomes physically injured, they may become disinterested in eating. When this occurs, they begin to lack in certain nutrients causing the injury to last longer. Therefore, good nutrition plays an important part in accident prevention. There may even be cases where children who lack in nutrients become increasingly accident prone because of low blood sugar. Maintaining a healthy and safe weight can also prevent accidents. Through regular exercise, eating, and safety precautions, children can ward off many illnesses.