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It’s hard to get children to eat right. Numerous studies recently have pointed to food patterns established in early childhood as the beginning of eating habits, good and bad, that extend for years into the future. So the logical question to ask is, “What are the very youngest eaters eating?”

Researchers in Australia set out to do just that. They asked parents to recall everything their young toddlers (ages 12 to 16 months) consumed in the past 24 hours. Go ahead. Do that yourself right now. What did your child eat from the moment he or she woke up yesterday to the moment he or she woke up this morning?

Over 550 parents took part in the study. They reported that children ate the most of dairy foods and cereals. A quarter of the children were breastfed during the time period and another 32% of children drank formula. Although the study didn’t identify cereals specifically, typical American toddlers often eat dry breakfast cereal as finger foods, cooked cereals as spoon foods, and various teething biscuits and crackers.

Most children ate at least some fruits and vegetables (87% and 77%) but half the children ate just tiny amounts of meat or meat alternatives. The more formula toddlers consumed, the less diverse were their diets overall. A whopping 91% of children ate “discretionary items” – that is, snacks, sweets, and other low-nutrient foods.

What about your own child? How much did your child eat that was dairy, cereal, fruits, vegetables, and high quality protein like meat? How much did your child eat that was “discretionary”? How diverse is your own child’s diet?

Although certainly year-old children are just beginning on their dietary adventure and still rely on breast milk or formula for a substantial part of their nutrition, what is offered to children and what they eat tends to be pretty limited.  To avoid future eating disorders and to promote the best growth now, here are some ideas to consider.

  1. Offer a variety of nutrient-dense foods, like bits of fruit and vegetable, cubes of cheese, tender or pureed meats and fish. What you serve the rest of the family is ideal as the basis of your toddler’s diet so long as you give him some of all of what is served, not just the starchy foods.
  2. Limit less-nutritious foods like crackers and biscuits. Don’t be fooled by nutritious-sounding foods like fruit juice, fruit-flavored yogurt, and kiddie meals of all sorts. Become a reader of labels and choose foods that are low in sugars and fat and list only a few ingredients.
  3. Avoid completely nutrition-free foods like candy, cookies, chips, soda, non-carbonated drinks and drink mixes, Jello, and desserts. If you can’t avoid feeding these to your child (but why?), limit your child to less than one serving per day of this entire class of edibles.
  4. Make water your child’s snack beverage. If it’s not time to drink milk, then plain water should be his thirst-quencher. Not watered down juice or water with any sort of additives. Just water.

Remember that children will not starve themselves. There is no need to feed poor food to a toddler simply because “that’s all she likes.” And there is every reason to start now to accustom your child to a diverse diet of healthy foods.

Good nutrition starts early. Don’t miss your chance to get your child off to a healthy start.
 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

We all know that childhood obesity can have long-term health effects. Kids who are overweight in early childhood tend to retain their chunkiness and even become heavier as they grow older, out of proportion to increases in their height. The good news recently is that childhood obesity rates have leveled out. The bad news is that parents of overweight kids may actually think children’s weight is normal.

Are you blind to your child’s size? According to a new study published in Sweden, involving parents of 16,000 children aged 2 through 9 from all across Europe, half of parents whose children are too heavy for their height believe their children’s weight is just fine. Four out of 10 of these parents are even worried that their kids might become too thin. How can this be?

OVERCOMING CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Parents in the study were asked to describe their child’s weight as under- or over-normal or right on target. They also were asked about their concerns about a change in weight their child might experience in the near future. These perceptions were then compared with children’s actual measurements and Body Mass Index.

Parents of children whose measurements indicate they are overweight or obese were likely to believe their children’s weight is just fine. Half the parents living in Northern and Central Europe believed this, while a whopping 75% of parents in Southern Europe were blind to the facts.

Parents of children who were obese or overweight were more likely than parents of children who were underweight to believe their children were too thin or might become too thin. Forty percent of parents of heavy kids thought this way, in contrast to just 33% of parents of slender children.

The study didn’t indicate the weight status of parents, so there’s no way to tell if parents’ perceptions were influenced by their own weight issues. However, overweight is less of an issue in Europe than it is in the United States, so the population of children to which overweight kids might be compared by their parents is smaller than it is in this country.

DOES SLEEP DEPRIVATION CONTRIBUTE TO OBESITY?

The study’s author, Susann Regber, speculates that parents simply don’t notice. She believes that as small children grow, it’s difficult for parents to tell when weight becomes out of proportion to height, so concerned are they about children’s overall health and food intake. She says, “Many parents simply do not see the increase in growth, and are dependent on objective information from, for instance, child welfare centers and school health care to act.”

Since we all know the negative effects overweight and obesity can have for children’s health and also for their acceptance by other kids, it’s natural to be in denial about children’s weight. We tend to believe that early pudginess is just puppy fat that will disappear as children grow taller. It’s reasonable to imagine that our kids’ weight is within the normal range.

THE SECRET TO FAMILY HEALTH AND WELLNESS

So what can we do instead?

The idea that we may be blind to the reality of our children’s weight is eye-opening. Now that our eyes are open, we must pay attention to what we see.

 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Did your young child drink a soda today? A recent study, conducted by Columbia University found that for 43% of parents of five-year-olds the answer is “yes.” Four percent of five-year-olds drink four sodas or more on average every day.

But here’s the kicker: aggressive behavior goes up drink-by-drink. Any amount of soda consumption was associated with hitting, fighting, withdrawal, and problems with paying attention. There was no “safe” level. And children who drank four or more sodas a day were twice as likely as other kids to destroy things, attack other people, and get into trouble.

About 3,000 kindergarten-age children in 20 different cities participated in the study, which was released by The Journal of Pediatrics. Its findings add to previous concerns about soda consumption with regard to everything from fragile bones to obesity. Soft drink consumption has even been linked to depression and unstable behavior in adolescents.

Check your refrigerator: does it contain soft drinks intended for your kids? If so, now is the time to wean your children off daily soda consumption.

  1. Let the soda run out. When it’s all gone, don’t buy any more.
  2. Replace soda with healthful drinks. Chilled water and milk are best for kids. Even fruit juice is too sugary.
  3. Make sweet drinks, like soda, flavored milk, and fruit juice, be only occasional treats. Notice that “occasional” isn’t “once a day.” Even one soda a day has ill effects on kids’ behavior.
  4. Change your own beverage choices. “No soda” means “none for anyone.” Remember that diet sodas create problems too.
  5. Be strong in the face of protests. It will take time to change your children’s habits (and your own). Your children will not die of thirst if there are no soft drinks in the house.

The beverage habits your children develop now create a foundation for their wellness as adults. But even more, right now, cutting back the soda can make your life easier, if your children become better-behaved and get into trouble less often.

No soda might not be a cure-all. But it’s a good place to start!

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.



Face it. Most children love fast food and fast food companies cater specifically to children. Happy Meals, Playland, Ronald McDonald, and that cute, freckle-faced Wendy, they all say “kids are welcome here!”

At the same time, fast food meals are often very high in fat, salt and sugar and low in nutritional value. Even when nutritional information is posted, parents do not change what they order for their children. We all know the nutritional issues with fast food, but we buy our kids what they want to eat, not what is good for them.

This isn’t a problem if fast food is just an occasional meal – once a month or so. A treat of burger and fries or hot dog and a milkshake is just that – a lovely treat. But a new California study finds that for many children, a fast food dinner is not unusual event. It’s an every week ritual.

In fact, 60% of all children between ages of 2 and 5 were found in this study to eat a fast food meal at least once a week. Twenty-nine percent ate at a fast food restaurant twice in any given week and 10% ate more than twice. These numbers are the same as what was found in studies conducted in five or six years ago. The study’s lead author, Susan Holtby, said “A weekly happy meal is an unhappy solution, especially for toddlers.”

In addition, although this study found that children are drinking fewer sugar-sweetened drinks than they used to do, children who eat two or three fast food meals are much more likely than other kids to drink soda. Says Holtby, “Fast food combined with drinking soda at such a young age can set these kids up for obesity-related health problems.”

Although fast food has sometimes been labeled the food of choice of poorer parents, this study found that middle class parents were much more likely to say they don’t have a lot of influence over what their children eat and to use that as an excuse for feeding their children fast food meals. This finding leads to the first suggestion of what to do about this:

  1. Be the parent. Limit fast food meals to treat status and make certain small children, in particular, do not eat at fast food restaurants on a weekly basis. You do indeed have influence over what your children eat.
  2. When you do permit your child to eat fast food, choose wisely. Select the apple slices option over French fries and order plain milk over flavored milk or soda. Limit how much you order for your child and don’t order dessert.
  3. Balance fast food with really good nutrition. Make certain that your child’s “usual” meals are heavy on fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. Don’t serve soda or flavored milk at home.
  4. Never use fast food as a reward. Whatever we use as rewards is instantly elevated into something more worthy than the alternative. If you must use rewards with your child, use something like reading a book together or playing a game.

Many of us grew up on fast food and we love it as much as our children do. Part of improving children’s nutrition might include improving our own. Eat well. Be healthier and smarter.

But most of all, fuel your children with the right stuff.

 

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.

In a new article slated for publication in October and titled, “”If it’s Useful and You Know it, Do You Eat?” the answer preschoolers came up with is a resounding “NO!” Knowing a food is “good for you” made children less inclined to eat it rather than more convinced they should.

Two hundred and seventy preschoolers were read stories in which a girl chose foods to eat as a snack. Some of the children heard a story in which the girl was interested in a food because she knew it was good for her. Some of the children heard a story in which the girl was interested in a food because she knew it was tasty. And some of the children heard a story in which no reason at all was given for the girl’s choice of snack.

The result? Children who heard the story in which no reason was given or the reason of tastiness was given were more likely to eat the food featured in the story than children who heard the story in which the food was said to be good for them. Children rejected “good-for-you” food in favor of just plain good food. According to researchers Ayelet Fishbach and Michal Mairmaran, telling children a food will help them grow big and strong or make them smarter actually decreases their interest in eating that food.

Fishbach said, “The preschoolers seem to think that food can’t serve two purposes, that it can’t be something that makes them healthier and something that is delicious to eat at the same time. So telling them that the carrots will make them grow tall (or make them smarter) actually makes them not want to eat the carrots. If you want them to eat the carrots, you should just give the kids the carrots and either mention that they are tasty or just say nothing.”

In this era of food-as-medicine, where everything from yogurt to broccoli is “prescribed” not because they are delicious but because they have some specific biological effect, giving up on the usefulness of food to supply specific nutrients is a bit of a switch. Notice that I’m not suggesting that children be allowed to eat whatever and only what they want, including junk food. That’s not what’s being said at all. Instead, this research simply says to avoid trying to persuade a child to eat something because of some nutritional requirement. Instead, say nothing at all.

We are so used to telling children to eat something because it’s good for them, that not doing that will be a stretch for many parents.  We’ve got to keep in mind that “cleaning your plate” is not a virtue in itself and that children, just like grownups, eat foods they like more than they eat foods they must.

 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Join Dr. Anderson in an online conference for teachers and parents. Find out more at Quality Conference for Early Childhood Leaders.

Are there treats in your house right now, hidden away where the kids can’t find them?

A bag of chips. A supply of Oreos. Ice cream in the very back of the freezer.

How’s that working for you? Has your treat stash become the object of a continuing scavenger hunt at your house? You hide things away. Your children figure out where they are and then gobble them all. You buy more and hide things again.

Like little Sherlock Holmeses, your children can figure you out. They’re wily and determined. No treats are safe, no matter what you do. And most of all those treats are not safe from you! Are they?

So here’s an idea, straight from Katherine Tallmadge, author of Diet Simple. Tallmadge suggests you control the environment not the treats. Create an environment in which everything edible is available for eating. Take the thrill of the chase out of the equation and hide things in plain sight, at kid-eye-level in the pantry and the fridge.

This means, of course, that your treats are both delicious and good for you. The whole reason why treats get hidden is you know they’re junk. So why are you buying junk?

Parents buy junk food because a) they believe children want it and b) they believe it’s cheap.  But here’s the secret: children eat what’s easy. If what they think they want isn’t available, they’ll eat the next best thing that is. Retrain their taste buds by eliminating completely all the junk you’ve been buying and replacing it with stuff that’s tasty, fun and good for good health.

How about…

What’s holding you back? What’s going through your mind right now? Are you thinking this is too expensive? Are you thinking this is too hard?

When a package of store-bought cookies is at least three dollars and a bag of chips runs about four bucks, and when your kids and their friends can polish one or the other off in a single sitting, it’s silly to think that a bag of apples for the same price isn’t a good deal. It is. That bag of apples will last an entire week, no problem. A bag of popcorn. A pound of cheese and some plain crackers. The problem isn’t price and it isn’t the level of difficulty. What’s stuck is your brain.

For the good of your health and your kids’ health, rethink the treats. Instead of hiding treats, celebrate them.

 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

A recent study at the University of North Carolina found that children’s distrust of new foods can be accounted for by their genes. In fact, a whopping 72% of pickiness appears to be inherited from Mom and Dad.

These findings mimic earlier findings with older children and adults. But the participants in this new study were kids like yours: children between the ages of four and seven.

So. This explains your everyday mealtime hassle quite a bit. However, as researcher Myles Faith explains, “genetics does not equal destiny…. This doesn’t mean that we can’t try to get children to accept new foods.” It just might take a while.

It may take 14 or 15 exposures to a new food before a child accepts it – even longer if he or she is “neophobic,” or cautious of new things. Parents usually don’t give a new food that many tries before giving up on it. (And after 15 tries with a problem food, a child may be older and more adventuresome. As one of my nephews once said of broccoli, “Taste buds change!”) So simply continuing to present new foods and not making too big a deal about it when a child rejects it (again!) is part of the process.

At the same time, it’s important to simply present new foods and not apply too much pressure to try them. A study in 2006 found that preschoolers introduced to new soups ate more of soups they weren’t pressured about and less of those they were strongly encouraged to try.

In addition, the remaining 28% of pickiness is accounted for by what researchers call “environmental factors.” These include mealtime distractions, like the television being on, informal meals instead of sit-down dining, and other upsets. Controlling these may help children eat more at dinner time, even if they still reject some of what they’re served.

While you’re waiting for your child to grow into more reasonable eating patterns, just remember to serve as much variety as she will accept, including lots of fruits and protein, and as few sweets as possible. Eventually, she’ll become more accepting of new foods – or, like Mom or Dad, maybe she won’t!

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.