Children's nutrition testing analyzer

The child nutrition testing analyzer is neither a "parenting artifact" that can accurately diagnose all nutritional problems, nor is it a completely useless IQ tax - its essence is a rapid preliminary screening tool for nutritional risks for children, suitable for batch pre-screening of grassroots child care and day care institutions. The results cannot replace venous blood testing and clinical diagnosis, nor can they be directly used as the only basis for purchasing nutritional supplements.

Last year, I worked as a volunteer in child care in a neighborhood for half a year. I saw too many parents clutching the thin report printed by the machine and surrounding the doctor asking if they needed zinc or iron supplements. Many of them turned around and went straight to the maternal and child store at the door, returning with hundreds of compound supplements. They couldn't stop them.

In fact, most of the common instruments on the market today use the bioelectrical impedance analysis method. Some use finger clamps, and some let children hold the sensor handle. The value is calculated based on the difference in the conductivity of the human body under different nutritional states. The error range is inherently large. I talked to Dr. Li from the Pediatric Care Department of a tertiary hospital. She has encountered too many parents who come for reexamination with test reports from outside. Sometimes their children’s palms are sweaty just after running and jumping, or they drank a large glass of warm milk half an hour before the test, or even if their hands were cold that day, the measured values ​​​​can drift wildly. Her attitude is very clear: to really judge whether a child has nutritional deficiencies, one must combine the results of venous blood tests, daily dietary intake, growth curve trends, and actual symptoms, such as frequent oral ulcers, night sweats during sleep, and whether the height and weight continue to lag behind peers. It is too hasty to draw conclusions based on the results of that instrument alone.

But you can't just beat this thing to death with a stick. I know Sister Zhang, a health practitioner from a chain of daycare centers. They use this instrument to screen all the more than 200 children in their kindergarten every quarter. One child can be tested in one minute. There is no need to draw blood, and the children do not resist. She would never tell parents directly, "Whatever your child lacks, you need to make up for it." She would only list the children whose nutrient intake was lower than the baseline for two consecutive screenings and remind parents to pay more attention to their daily diet. If they are worried, go to the hospital for further examination. In her words: "We can't let two hundred children go to the hospital one by one to get blood tests for nutrition, right? Most families don't have the energy to run regularly. This device helps us pick out the children who may be at risk. It's better to warn them early than to wait until the children are behind in development before intervening."

I came across a dumbfounding case a while ago. A mother said that she was tested at a maternal and child store at the entrance of her community. The instrument showed that her child was seriously deficient in iron. The clerk gave her more than 2,000 iron supplements. The more she thought about it when she bought it home, she took it to the hospital for a review. There were no problems. Later, she figured out that the child had just eaten a popsicle that day and her hands were very cold, so the measured value was naturally wrong.

Controversy over this type of instrument has never stopped in the industry. One group believes that the threshold for use must be raised, and that it can only be operated by medically qualified personnel. All test reports must be marked with "for screening reference only, not for diagnosis" in a prominent position, and it is strictly forbidden to be tied to the sale of supplements. The other group believes that as long as the instrument is popularized and the positioning of the instrument is clearly explained to parents, it can be a low-cost and universal tool. In particular, many children in remote areas do not have the conditions to undergo regular venous blood nutrition testing. It can detect many potential nutritional problems in advance.

My own experience after being exposed to it is that you don’t need to be overly dissatisfied and don’t be blindly superstitious. When you encounter the use of this instrument, first check who is operating it: if it is tested by a health doctor in a regular hospital or nursery school, the result can be used as a reminder. For example, if vitamin A is found to be low, give more Add some orange vegetables to your child and observe again after a while. If you really have any doubts, go to the hospital for a professional test; if a place that sells supplements tests you and then directly stuffs various nutritional tablets into your hand after the test, then you can just turn around and leave. Maybe they have adjusted the parameters of the instrument in advance for the purpose of selling products.

The last time my sister took her nephew to the childcare center, she took a test, which showed that the zinc intake was slightly low. She did not buy random supplements. She just made steamed oyster eggs for her child twice a week and ate more lean beef. When she took the test again three months later, the value had already returned to the normal range. To put it bluntly, the instrument itself is just a tool. Whether it is easy to use or not depends on whether the person using it maintains the bottom line.