Is it okay if your toddler drinks tea?

In many Indian families, offering tea to a toddler is a norm. It is believed that tea aids digestion, improves immunity, fight seasonal sickness, what-have-you. Well, we don’t doubt the benefits of drinking tea. But if you think that toddlers, like, adults need to have tea to reap the same benefits, you are probably wrong. Even adding more milk or offering biscuits with tea isn’t going to overshadow the harmful effects of tea on the little one’s health. Here Dhvani Shah, naturopathic nutritionist and author of the book ‘Don’t just feed…Nourish your child,’ says why tea isn’t a healthy beverage for your child. Is tea harmful to toddlers and young children? Tea is a beverage for the adults. In toddlers or even young children the reactive substances in tea hamper calcium absorption resulting in malcalcification and calcium deficiencies. Continuous intake of tea in young children can affect their brain, muscular, nervous system and structural growth. Some common side effects of having tea from an early age are:

• Lower bone density
• Body aches, especially, in the lower limbs
• Lack of concentration leading to irritability and other behavioural disorders
• Lower muscle strength

Will adding more milk to tea make it better? Many mothers feel that adding more milk to tea preparation can help their kid drink milk without any fuss and ensure better calcium intake. But what they fail to understand is that even few drops of tea in the milk can mar the health benefits of milk. The caseins, proteins found in milk, form complexes with catechins present in tea, it’s most important flavonoids. These complexes exert ‘opium’ like effects on the nervous system - being the most common interpretation of ‘tea addiction.’ And addiction at any age isn’t healthy. Is the combination of tea and biscuits a healthy one? This, especially for toddlers and young children is a deadly combination. Here is why:

• Biscuits add an additive load to the morning meal. For growing children, their 1st meal must include growth and nutrient dense foods like poha, paratha or even a bowl of cereals with milk.
• Excess sugars, colour, essence, flavours, urea, additives, preservatives in biscuits affect muscle and nerve development

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