Parent Extremis

We’ve all heard stories of a friend who was in Wal-Mart and witnessed a seven-year old using a pacifier and a one-year old with a bottle full of Coke. Some of us prefer to feed our kids as much organic food as possible and some of us just try to get something, anything edible into our kids mouths a few times a day and then hope for the best. Coke in a baby’s bottle is largely WRONG but aside from that little sugary snafu, where do you draw your line and how do you determine what kind of nutrition your kids get?

With advertising being what it is today it can be tricky for busy, unknowing and first-time parents to decide what to feed their children. Food labeling is at an all time marketing-led high of misinformation and misleading claims. Whole grain - Heart Healthy - Low Fat - No Trans Fat - DHA/ARA! - Omega 3 - It’s enough to make even the rare calm level-headed unstressed-out parent-shopper a little frazzled.

A quick Google search for _kids nutrition_ and _nutrition for kids_ doesn’t yield many definitive or direct answers. There are quite a few pages, indeed but no simple charts or lists saying that kids need X amount of vegetables and Y amount of calcium each day. Rather, most websites I found referenced the USDA Food Guide Pyramid. Also, the USDA Food Pyramid for Kids.

I also came across several mentions of a campaign to combat a severe lack of calcium in kids diets these days. Calcium is a nutrient found in dairy products (yogurt, cheese, milk, cottage cheese) and green leafy vegetables that is responsible for helping to build strong bones.

When I started this article I had hoped to find more definitive information about children and nutrition. I wanted to pass on facts and guidelines but there wasn’t anything very easy to locate. How do you feel about this? Are you confident about what you feed your kids? Could you use an update on nutrition? Where do you look for this sort of information?