Effect of Meals on Learning
source: http://simplycharlottemason.com/store/samples/Early-Years-sample.pdf
Meals
1. Good nutrition can affect your child’s brain as well as body.
“The brain cannot do its work well unless it be abundantly and suitably
nourished; somebody has made a calculation of how many ounces of brain went to
the production of such a work—say Paradise Lost—how many to such another, and
so on. Without going into mental arithmetic of this nature, we may say with safety
that every sort of intellectual activity wastes the tissues of the brain; a network of
vessels supplies an enormous quantity of blood to the organ, to make up for this
waste of material; and the vigour and health of the brain depend upon the quality
and quantity of this blood-supply.
“Now, the quality of the blood is affected by three or four causes. In the first
place, the blood is elaborated from the food; the more nutritious and easy of
digestion the food, the more vital will be the properties of the blood” (Vol. 1, pp.
24, 25).
2. Give your child a variety of healthful foods to help nourish his brain and
replenish his body cells.
“The food must be varied, too, a mixed diet, because various ingredients are
required to make up for the various waste in the tissues. The children are shocking
spendthrifts; their endless goings and comings, their restlessness, their energy, the
very wagging of their tongues, all mean expenditure of substance: the loss is not
appreciable, but they lose something by every sudden sally, out of doors or within.
No doubt the gain of power which results from exercise is more than compensation
for the loss of substance; but, all the same, this loss must be promptly made good.
And not only is the body of the child more active, proportionably, than that of
the man: the child’s brain as compared with a man’s is in a perpetual flutter of
endeavour. It is calculated that though the brain of a man weighs no more than
a fortieth part of his body, yet a fifth or sixth of his whole complement of blood
“Even for tea and
breakfast the wise
mother does not
say, ‘I always give my
children’ so and so.”
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Notes
Proper Physical Care
goes to nourish this delicate and intensely active organ; but, in the child’s case, a
considerably larger proportion of the blood that is in him is spent on the sustenance
of his brain. And all the time, with these excessive demands upon him, the child has
to grow! not merely to make up for waste, but to produce new substance in brain
and body” (Vol. 1, p. 25).
“But, given pleasant surroundings and excellent food, and even then the
requirements of these exacting little people are not fully met: plain as their food
should be, they must have variety. A leg of mutton every Tuesday, the same cold on
Wednesday, and hashed on Thursday, may be very good food; but the child who
has this diet week after week is inadequately nourished, simply because he is tired
of it. The mother should contrive a rotation for her children that will last at least a
fortnight, without the same dinner recurring twice. Fish, especially if the children
dine off it without meat to follow, is excellent as a change, the more so as it is rich
in phosphorus––a valuable brain food. The children’s puddings deserve a good deal
of consideration, because they do not commonly care for fatty foods, but prefer to
derive the warmth of their bodies from the starch and sugar of their puddings. But
give them a variety; do not let it be ‘everlasting tapioca.’ Even for tea and breakfast
the wise mother does not say, ‘I always give my children’ so and so. They should
not have anything ‘always’; every meal should have some little surprise. But is this
the way, to make them think overmuch of what they shall eat and drink? On the
contrary, it is the underfed children who are greedy, and unfit to be trusted with
any unusual delicacy” (Vol. 1, pp. 27, 28).
3. Give your child enough food to help him grow and flourish both physically
and mentally.
“The child must be well fed. Half the people of low vitality we come across are
the victims of low-feeding during their childhood; and that more often because
their parents were not alive to their duty in this respect, then because they were not
in a position to afford their children the diet necessary to their full physical and
mental development” (Vol. 1, pp. 25, 26).
4. Eat regular meals at usual intervals throughout the day.
“Regular meals at, usually, unbroken intervals—dinner, never more than five
hours after breakfast; luncheon, unnecessary; animal food, once certainly, in some
lighter form, twice a day—are the suggestions of common sense followed out in
most well-regulated households” (Vol. 1, p. 26).
5. Limit rich or fried foods and make sure your child drinks enough water.
“But it is not the food which is eaten, but the food which is digested, that
nourishes body and brain. And here so many considerations press, that we can only
glance at two or three of the most obvious. Everybody knows that children should
not eat pastry, or pork, or fried meats, or cheese, or rich, highly-flavoured food
of any description; that pepper, mustard, and vinegar, sauces and spices, should
be forbidden, with new bread, rich cakes, and jams, like plum or gooseberry, in
which the leathery coat of the fruit is preserved; that milk, or milk and water, and
that not too warm, or cocoa, is the best drink for children, and that they should be
trained not to drink until they have finished eating; that fresh fruit at breakfast is
“Regular meals at,
usually, unbroken
intervals.”
Though some details may have
changed since Charlotte lived,
the principles of healthy eating
remain.
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Notes
Proper Physical Care
invaluable; that, as serving the same end, oatmeal porridge and treacle, and the fat
of toasted bacon, are valuable breakfast foods; and that a glass of water, also, taken
the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, is useful in promoting
those regular habits on which much of the comfort of life depends” (Vol. 1, p. 26).
6. Keep meal times pleasant.
“Again let me say, it is digested food that nourishes the system, and people are
apt to forget how far mental and moral conditions affect the processes of digestion.
The fact is, that the gastric juices which act as solvents to the viands are only
secreted freely when the mind is in a cheerful and contented frame. If the child
dislike his dinner, he swallows it, but the digestion of that distasteful meal is a
laborious, much-impeded process: if the meal be eaten in silence, unrelieved by
pleasant chat, the child loses much of the ‘good’ of his dinner. Hence it is not a
matter of pampering them at all, but a matter of health, of due nutrition, that the
children should enjoy their food, and that their meals should be eaten in gladness;
though, by the way, joyful excitement is as mischievous as its opposite in destroying
that even, cheerful tenor of mind favourable to the processes of digestion. No
pains should be spared to make the hours of meeting round the family table the
brightest hours of the day. This is supposing that the children are allowed to sit at
the same table with their parents; and, if it is possible to let them do so at every
meal excepting a late dinner, the advantage to the little people is incalculable” (Vol.
1, pp. 26, 27).
7. Use meal times to practice good manners and reinforce good habits.
“Here is the parents’ opportunity to train them in manners and morals,
to cement family love, and to accustom the children to habits, such as that of
thorough mastication, for instance, as important on the score of health as on that
of propriety” (Vol. 1, p. 27).