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Feeding Your Preschooler

Calorie and fat consumption

Feeding Your Preschooler As your child moves toward six, his nutrient needs continue to evolve into a more adultlike diet. Pound for pound, youngsters require less energy with increasing age. Since the amount of fat kids need to flourish depends on their calorie intake, fat requirements gradually go down with advancing age, too. In fact, now is a good time to start nudging your child toward a lower fat diet.

Parents often find daily guidelines for fat and calorie intake helpful because they provide a benchmark for a child's progress. While the suggested intakes for calories and fat are based on scientific research, the numbers apply to groups of children, not to individual youngsters. In fact, they are not intended to be used as a guideline for your child. That's because each child's calorie needs are unique. Plus, a preschooler's appetite may be all over the map for a variety of reasons, which makes a daily quota out of the question. It's best to loosely monitor calorie and fat consumption over the course of a few days, or even a week. Don't become too concerned unless a pediatrician diagnoses your preschooler as underweight or overweight, or at high risk for heart disease.

Milk: When, What, and How?
Starting at age two, most children can safely drink reduced-fat milk, including 1% low-fat and 2% reduced-fat. That's because your youngster requires less of the fat and cholesterol concentrated in full-fat milk than she did during her first two years. That's not to say that you must serve skim or 1% low-fat or light milk, however. Your daughter may still need the calories that full-fat dairy products supply. Whatever milk you choose, make sure your child drinks enough to get the calcium required by growing bones. Three-year-olds need 500 milligrams of calcium a day, the equivalent of about 14 ounces of milk or fortified soy beverage. Four-, five-, and six-year-olds need much more: 800 milligrams of calcium daily, or about 24 ounces of milk or fortified soy beverage.

Fat; Don't Go Too Low
For the first six months of life, breast milk or infant formula provided the primary fat source for your baby. During infancy, your baby needs about 50 percent of his calories from fat in order to get the calories and essential fats to fuel brain and body development. By the time kids reach the age of five, experts say that they require only about a third of their calories as fat, however. That's the same amount as adults should eat for good health.

Yet, in spite of the recommendation for slowly reducing fat in a child's diet until it accounts for about 30 percent of the total calories consumed, parents should know that there are no proven benefits to going lower than the suggested amount. In fact, restricting a preschooler's fat intake can be dangerous. According to the AAR consuming less than 30 percent fat calories is typically unnecessary, and may make it difficult for children to get the calories and other nutrients they need to grow and develop properly. That's not to say that higher fat diets are always healthier ones. Depending on the fat sources, high-fat diets can be quite unhealthy for kids and can prove just as detrimental to growth as very low-fat eating regimens.

Parents who serve a variety of high- and low-fat foods are on the right track with their children's eating. It makes little sense to exclude nutrient-packed kid favorites such as beef, cheese, and peanut butter based on their fat content. In fact, it's foolish to omit these foods, since they are also rich in vitamins and minerals. Cutting back on snack chips, French fries, and cookies makes more sense for controlling fat because these foods lack nutritional benefit.

Counting on Calories
This may come as a surprise, but depending on their age, preschoolers require as many calories as some sedentary men and women.

A three-year-old needs an average of 1,300 calories daily, or about 45 calories for every pound of body weight. Four- and five-year-olds require on the order of 1,300 to 1,800 calories a day. That translates to about 41 calories per pound of body weight. Although your preschooler may need as many calories to grow as you do to maintain your weight, when you compare calorie needs on a pound-per-pound basis, youngsters require three rimes as many calories as adults. Why the difference? They're growing and you're not. That's why a preschooler's energy demands are far greater for their size than an adult's, who is physically mature.

In My Experience: Check Body Image Talk at the Door
Children become keenly aware of their bodies at about age four. At the same time, they may hear negative talk about how you, your babysitter, or someone on television feels about their weight or body shape. Young girls are particularly tuned in to "body talk." That's why you must take care to avoid making negative remarks about your build, your spouse's, or anyone else's you may encounter. Surely, few women reading this book are completely satisfied with their bodies, so it may prove difficult to contain your displeasure. But try to keep it to yourself. Four- and five-year-olds are intelligent enough to pick up on your dissatisfaction and wonder about the adequacy of their own bodies. They look to their parents to feel good about themselves. Knowing that you feel positively about your shape provides a certain security, if you are unhappy with your weight or shape, speak with a registered dietitian about changing your eating and exercise habits for the better. Or, discuss your feelings with a mental health professional to help improve your body image.

Modeling healthy eatingSet the Table, Set the Stage for Future Food Choices
Wouldn't it be great if your four-year-old never again turned up her nose at fruits and vegetables? What parent in her right mind wouldn't jump for joy when her five-year-old drinks the recommended three glasses of milk every day, without the whining? You may even want to hug your daughter when she finally decides she likes the homemade chicken pot pie that she has refused to try the first ten times you served it. (Believe me, I've been there.)

If you want these dream scenarios played out at your table, taking the lead will help. Studies show that adults who consume healthy foods have children who eat a more nutritious diet. It's not enough to simply insist your children finish their chicken or polish off their potatoes—you must, too.

The Role of Model
Little ones are like sponges. They soak up what's going on in their immediate surroundings, including your attitude toward food. Even when it appears that they are not paying attention, kids pick up cues about how to act during mealtimes (for example, that you value staying seated, using your napkin instead of your sleeve to wipe your face, and that it's better to converse with other family members than it is to start a food fight); what foods are held in high regard; and what to think about trying new foods. Providing a feeding environment with a minimum of distractions, including no television or loud music, shows children that mealtimes are important parts of the day meant for more than sharing food. For a breast- or bottle-fed infant, calm surroundings provide a pleasant opportunity to bond with Mom or Dad on a one-to-one basis.

Your enthusiasm for healthy foods goes a long way with your kids. When you dig into a new low-fat casserole recipe, finish your vegetables, and choose fruit over cookies for dessert, your children may do the same. Likewise, when you withhold treats such as candy and ice cream and use them as a bribe for finishing dinner, you send the signal that sweets are bargaining tools, which could prove problematic in the long run.

Parents who regularly offer kids new foods expand their child's food universe. Serving up couscous instead of rice or preparing a roll-up instead of a standard sandwich may sound simplistic to you, but it allows kids to imagine all sorts of food possibilities and may even serve as a conversation starter about how children in other parts of the country or the world eat and live. Dining at restaurants on foods not normally eaten at home, such as Middle Eastern, Thai, or Chinese fare, can do the same to broaden a child's horizons. Try new cuisines. Order take-out. That way, the pressure's off and children seem more willing to relax and try new foods.

At three, four, or five, each day of a child's life seems filled with discovery, including how others eat. The people your children see on a regular basis—babysitters, relatives, and peers—expand their ideas about food, as does watching television. Contact with adult caregivers, close relatives, and other children with different eating habits at day care, in nursery school, and in kindergarten affect how children view food. Some of this influence may be positive. Witnessing a peer at nursery school or day care eat a certain fruit or vegetable could spark an interest in that food and lead to a request for it. Eating family style in a day care setting can often result in children willingly eating foods they may refuse at home. My kids are much better eaters at my babysitter's house. Eating with their contemporaries cuts down on fussing and fosters acceptance of a wider variety of foods.

While your influence may wane somewhat as your child becomes increasingly autonomous, how you eat at home tends to serve as the strongest influence on your child's eating habits for life. Take the Family Nutrition Assessment to see if your family needs to make a change.

Mommy See, Mommy Do
When it comes to eating, kids mimic their parents. It seems that moms hold particular sway over their child's food choices. Researchers say that when mothers pick healthy foods such as milk, their children are more likely to follow suit. The Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that youngsters are more apt to drink milk when their mothers do, too. Other studies corroborate the power of Mom's influence on milk drinking, suggesting that children are less likely to consume milk if their mothers don't drink it, even when Mom insists that her kids drink up.