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Home › Articles › Toddler Nutrition › Tips for Healthy, Happy Mealtimes

Tips for Healthy, Happy Mealtimes

For Too Many Toddlers, French Fries Are the Only Vegetable

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French fries as a vegetable? Sure, they're made from potatoes, but that doesn't make them good for you. But according to a new study, fries are the vegetable most often fed to toddlers older than 15 months. In fact, almost a quarter of toddlers eat them at least once a day.

"Raising a toddler is stressful, and many parents tend to make their lives easier by finding a food their child will eat and sticking with it," says Frances Berg, noted childhood obesity expert and author of Underage and Overweight: America's Childhood Obesity Epidemic (Hatherleigh Press, 2004). "The problem is that a young child who is repeatedly given unhealthy foods and not exposed to as many healthy ones will be less likely to make healthy eating choices as he or she gets older."

The Feeding of Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS), which studied the eating habits of 3,000 children aged 4 months to 2 years, has called attention to the lack of fruits and vegetables fed to young children. Even with fries counted as a vegetable, half of toddlers aged 1 to 2 years ate no vegetables at lunch, and one-third had no vegetables at dinner.

Want to make sure your children are eating right? Berg gives these tips for stress-free healthy feeding:

Snack Time Is as Important as Mealtime
Because toddlers have small stomachs that limit the amount they can eat at mealtimes, they get much of their nutrition from snacks. Unfortunately, the snacks they're eating aren't always that nutritious: Cookies, chips and crackers top the list. Instead, serve healthy – and tasty – snacks like fruit and cheese.


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