What should I do if my child has stomachache and tooth decay? The reason is hidden in our meals

A family conflict caused by \”meal sharing\”. My friend M told me about an ironic incident that happened in her family recently. M works in a university and is a typical intellectual woman. Her husband is engaged in technology research and development in an IT company and he is a man in science. Because her working hours are more flexible, M spends more time at home than her husband. She has always taken the lead in housework, and her husband is very cooperative. But in the past few days, the couple had conflicts because M planned to \”share meals\” at home during the summer vacation. M’s idea of ​​“sharing meals” can be said to have been planned for a long time. After giving birth to the baby, my parents-in-law came to Beijing from their hometown and lived with M\’s family of three to help them take care of the baby. M\’s husband leaves early and comes home late every day due to work needs. He can only spend time with his wife and children on weekends, so M is very grateful to his parents-in-law for giving up their leisurely retirement life to help them. Without her parents-in-law to take care of her, it would be difficult for her to imagine how she could balance her career and housework with her baby. Three generations living together is a living situation that many of my friends may have experienced. Various inconsistencies in habits have brought a lot of distress to M. Among them, the most unbearable aspect for her is the mixed use of chopping boards, knives, and tableware in the kitchen. According to M’s living habits, chopping boards and knives for cutting cooked and raw food should be strictly separated to prevent cross-infection of harmful bacteria and parasites; everyone should also use their own tableware, so that even if everyone is sharing the same plate, When it comes to food, at least you use your own chopsticks to pick up the food in front of you and put it into your own bowl to eat, which is relatively hygienic. After the parents-in-law moved in, the mother-in-law helped take care of the children, while the father-in-law took over the kitchen work that he was best at. M tactfully reminded my father-in-law again and again, \”This chopping board is for cutting raw food, and that chopping board is for cutting things that go directly into the mouth.\” \”This knife is for cutting meat, that knife is for cutting vegetables, and this one is for cutting fruits.\” …But the old man didn\’t take it seriously. He felt that so many knives were too messy, so he simply left one outside. This knife was used for cutting everything, not to mention that all the dishes and chopsticks were mixed together and could be used at any time. M said that she was devastated when she first discovered that her father-in-law was cutting a watermelon with a knife that had been used to mince meat. Just when she was thinking about how to avoid eating the melon, her mother-in-law had already pinched a small piece and fed it to the then 7-month-old. Baby, M was so anxious that she almost screamed out. After that time, M found a lot of well-founded popular science articles and sent them to family groups to remind her parents-in-law: For the sake of the baby\’s health, they must pay attention to these details. Perhaps they were frightened by the serious consequences described in the article, so my parents-in-law began to pay attention to the separate use of chopping boards and knives, but they still felt that M was making a fuss over the separate use of tableware. Seeing that the baby is almost three years old, he has already begun to eat with the adults. As long as M is at home, he will always serve his baby a separate meal before eating. But when M is not at home, the parents-in-law will still eat with the baby in large plates and bowls, and even feed the baby directly with their own bowls and chopsticks. If the porridge is too hot during breakfast, my parents-in-law will blow it directly into their mouths to make the porridge cool faster. \”You don\’t know, my father-in-law has very serious dental caries. Some of the teeth are hollow and need to be removed and dentures will be implanted later. My father-in-law also has serious stomach problems. I heard that many germs can be transmitted through saliva. If you don\’t separate meals, ,How to avoid cross-infection of germs in babies? \”Based on this idea, M decided to take advantage of the summer vacation to make \”sharing meals\” a \”family rule.\” However, his parents-in-law were very uncomfortable with this and felt that their daughter-in-law thought they were dirty. After a while, M\’s husband stopped doing it. I said that M was \”looking for trouble and hurting my parents\’ feelings.\” In some cases, meals must be divided. I told M that, in fact, I had tried to implement the meal-sharing system at home. That was twenty years ago. When I was in high school, it was also during the summer vacation. I can’t remember which magazine I read. There was an article specifically talking about the differences between the \”meal-sharing\” habit in modern Western society and our traditional \”dining party\” habit. After reading it, I I felt that sharing meals was more hygienic, fresher, and better, so I wanted to practice \”sharing meals\” at home – after all, as early as the Han Dynasty, our country also ate in separate meals. After listening to me talk a lot, my mother After scolding me for messing around, my dad, who has always been relatively democratic, said, \”You can give it a try,\” but there was a condition: I would be responsible for \”sharing meals\” for everyone before the meal, and I would be responsible for washing the dishes after the meal. I happily agreed. As a result, because at home, There were many people, so washing dishes after meals was much more work than usual. I only washed them for a week, and then I was busy doing homework and reading. The second time I implemented \”meal sharing\” was after I got married. For a while, I I had stomachache all the time and went to the hospital for a checkup. The test results showed that Helicobacter pylori exceeded the standard. The doctor said that it is contagious and it is best to share meals with family members, especially children. There was no classmate Zhe at that time. Although my husband repeatedly said that he did not dislike me and was worried that he would be infected, We are still determined to share meals. After having children, in order to make the baby feel that sharing meals is natural, we often put the meals into our own bowls, or each person has one bowl and one plate with chopsticks. But when going to a relative\’s house or having a dinner with friends, do as the Romans do and try to use Serving spoons and chopsticks. From my own experience, I can see that M’s concerns are not unreasonable. Many pathogenic bacteria in the human body can be transmitted through saliva, the most common of which are cariogenic bacteria that cause dental caries and Helicobacter pylori that causes stomach problems. Therefore, it is not a joke to say that \”caries are contagious\”, and the saying that \”one person has stomach problems and the whole family has stomach problems\” is not groundless. Especially for children under 3 years old, the immune system has not yet been fully developed. If a family member has untreated dental caries, they will have stomach problems while eating. If you don\’t pay attention to meal sharing, cariogenic bacteria can easily be \”vertically transmitted\” to children. Similarly, Helicobacter pylori, which directly causes ulcer disease and chronic gastritis, can be detected in the patient\’s mouth, tartar and even saliva. In the process of sharing tableware , the probability of mutual infection is very high. According to research reports, in Western developed countries that are accustomed to sharing meals, the infection rate of Helicobacter pylori is significantly lower than that in Asian countries that are accustomed to dining together. Among them, the infection rate of Americans is only 20 %. The benefits of \”meal sharing\” can be easily found on Baidu, which can effectively prevent the spread of diseases and protect the health of the elderly and children with low resistance. When distributing food, it is convenient to quantitatively proportion various types of food, and nutrition can be better controlled. Accurate, conducive to balanced nutritional intake; one person has one plate, what to eat is clear, and the food is rationed according to needs, making it easy to control the diet; family members can freely adjust the taste of the food on their plate according to their own tastes, and they like sweetnessIt doesn\’t matter if you like spicy food; adults set an example and eat all the food on their plates, which plays an important role in cultivating children\’s good habit of not being picky eaters and leaving no leftovers. \”Separating meals\” for babies has so many benefits, but it is not easy to implement. The situation like \”making the elderly unhappy\” in M\’s family exists in many families. After all, in the traditional family cultural atmosphere, the elderly have long been accustomed to having lively dinners with the whole family for decades, and are accustomed to giving delicious food to their children and grandchildren to show their concern. It will definitely be difficult for them to adapt to the sudden request to share meals. In addition to persuading with emotion and reason, it is also important to make appropriate compromises. We can implement \”partial meal sharing\”. Partial meal sharing is to share meals with family members with special needs, such as children who need intensive protection, or frail elderly people, or family members who are losing weight… Others still eat in the original way, using serving spoons and chopsticks as much as possible. When dividing meals for your baby, you must first pay attention to the fact that the chopping boards and knives for making baby meals should be used separately, and raw and cooked food must be separated. It is best to choose a high-density environmentally friendly material that is not easy to breed bacteria for the chopping board, which is safer and hygienic. At the same time, prepare one or two sets of special tableware for the baby. When eating, serve the baby\’s food separately from the adult food. Do not feed the baby directly with your own spoon or chopsticks. Baby\’s chopping boards, knives, and tableware must be disinfected regularly.