During the Mid-Autumn Festival, activities such as moon gazing, tasting mooncakes, and launching lanterns are popular among children. However, while enjoying the festive fun, health experts remind parents to pay attention to the amount of mooncakes their children consume to avoid digestive discomfort. Although mooncakes are delicious, their high calorie and high fat content makes them hard to digest. Overeating may lead to children experiencing loss of appetite, fatigue, dry mouth, and even issues like bloating, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, which can affect their healthy growth.
The high fat content in mooncakes, often paired with various fillings like duck egg yolk and mixed nuts, makes them tasty but also rich and greasy. Eating too many can not only decrease a child’s appetite but may also trigger symptoms like indigestion, fatigue, dizziness, and nausea. It is crucial to control the quantity consumed; it is suggested to cut one mooncake into six to eight pieces, allowing children to eat one or two pieces at a time to avoid affecting their main meals.
To let children enjoy the taste of mooncakes while staying healthy, parents can take some measures. For instance, educating children to eat mooncakes in moderation and pairing them with fruits, vegetables, or green tea about an hour after consumption can aid digestion. Additionally, mooncakes should not be eaten on an empty stomach; it is best to have them one hour after a meal to prevent excessive burden on the digestive system.
In selecting mooncakes, it is recommended to consider new varieties such as fruit mooncakes and snow skin mooncakes. Compared to traditional mooncakes, these options contain healthier and more easily digestible ingredients and are smaller in size, so even if a child eats one, it won’t have a significant impact. However, these types of mooncakes need to be refrigerated, as they can easily spoil at room temperature, and parents should check them to prevent children from inadvertently consuming spoiled ones.
In summary, while enjoying traditional foods during the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is essential to ensure the health and safety of children’s diets, making the holiday a beautiful and healthy memory.
