Topic Overview
What is healthy eating?
Healthy eating means
eating a variety of foods so that your child gets the
(such as
,
, fat,
, and
) he or she needs for normal growth. If your
child regularly eats a wide variety of basic foods, he or she will be
well-nourished.
How much food is good for your child?
With babies and toddlers, you can usually leave it to them to eat the right amount of food at each meal, as long as you make only healthy foods available.
Babies cry to let us know they're hungry. When they're full, they stop eating. Things get more complicated at age 2 or 3, when children begin to prefer the tastes of certain foods, dislike the tastes of other foods, and have a lot of variation in how hungry they are. But even then it usually works best to make only healthy foods available and let your child decide how much to eat.
It may worry you to see your
child eat very little at a meal. Children tend to eat the same number of
calories every day or two if they are allowed to decide how much to eat. But the pattern of calorie intake may vary from day to day. One
day a child may eat a big breakfast, a big lunch, and hardly any dinner. The
next day this same child may eat very little at breakfast but may eat a lot at
lunch and dinner. Don't expect your child to eat the same amount of food at
every meal and snack each day.
How can you help your child eat well and be healthy?
Many parents worry that their
child is either eating too much or too little. Perhaps your child only wants to
eat one type of food—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for instance. One way
to help your child eat well and help you worry less is to know what your job is
and what your child’s job is when it comes to eating. If your child only wants to eat one type
of food, he or she is doing the parent's job of deciding what food choices are.
It is the parent's job to decide what foods
are offered.
- Your job is to offer
nutritious food choices at meals and snack times. You decide the
what, where, and when of eating.
- Your child's job is to choose how much he or she will
eat of the foods you serve. Your child decides how much
or even whether to eat.