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Sunday, October 26, 2003
A study of more than 3,000
youngsters found that significant numbers of infants and
toddlers are downing
french fries, pizza, candy and soda.
Children 1 to 2 years
old require about 950 calories per day, but the study found
that the median intake for that age group is 1,220 calories
-- an excess of nearly 30 percent. For those 7 months to 11
months old, the daily caloric surplus is about 20 percent.
"By
24 months, patterns look startlingly similar to some of the
problematic American dietary patterns," said an overview of
the Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study, commissioned by baby-food
maker Gerber Products Co.
Recent research has found that about
one in every five Americans is obese, double the rate in the
mid-1980s.
"Children are watching you. They see what you do," said
Chicago-area dietitian Jodie Shield, who has written two books
on child nutrition. "We're on a very
dangerous course if we do not make some changes in helping parents step up to
the plate and be role models."
"Across cultures, it's a positive thing to overfeed
your chubby little baby," said Dorothy DeLessio, a dietitian at Brown University
Medical School in Providence, R.I. But she added that Americans are crossing
over to negative patterns of "round-cheeked overweight toddler, overweight preschooler,
overweight child, overweight adult."
An overview of the diet study was presented
Saturday at a meeting of the American Dietetic Association. The complete study
results are to be published in the association's journal in January.
The study
involved random telephone interviews conducted in 2002 that asked parents or
primary caregivers what their youngsters ages 4 months to 2 years ate that particular
day.
As much as a third of the children younger than 2 consumed no fruits or
vegetables, according to the survey. And for those who did have a vegetable,
french fries were the most common selection for children 15 months and older.
Nine percent of children 9 months to 11 months old ate fries at least once per
day. For those 19 months to 2 years old, more than 20 percent had fries daily.
Hot dogs, sausage and bacon also were daily staples for many children -- 7 percent
in the 9-to-11 month group, and 25 percent in the older group.
More than 60 percent
of 12-month-olds had dessert or candy at least once per day, and 16 percent ate
a salty snack. Those numbers rose to 70 percent and 27 percent by age 19 months.
Thirty percent to 40 percent of the children 15 months and older had a sugary
fruit drink each day, and about 10 percent had soda.
Shield said early diets
strongly influence children, whose food preferences are generally shaped between
ages 2 and 3.
"If kids are having soda and soft drinks at such an early age,
it's going to be very, very challenging to introduce other types of foods for
them later," she said.
The study also found that parents were ignoring widely
accepted practices by allowing 29 percent of infants to eat solid food before
they were 4 months old; 17 percent to drink juice before 6 months; and 20 percent
to drink cow's milk before 12 months.
Shortcomings were more pronounced among
families receiving financial assistance through the federal Women, Infants and
Children program, the study found.
More than 40 percent of WIC toddlers did not
eat any fruit on the survey day, and those children also drank more sweetened
drinks.
© 2003
The Washington Post Company
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