What to Expect the Toddler Years (174 page)

Iron-rich foods—some every day.
Good sources include: Iron-fortified cereals; beef; blackstrap molasses; baked goods made with carob or soy flour; whole grains; wheat germ; dried peas and beans, including soybeans; dried fruit; liver and other organ meats (serve infrequently because they are high in cholesterol and are storehouses for the many chemical contaminants found in livestock today); sardines; spinach (serve infrequently because of high nitrate and oxalic acid levels). The iron in these foods will be better absorbed if a vitamin C food is eaten at the same sitting. If your toddler doesn’t eat a lot of high-iron foods, or if he or she is anemic, the doctor may recommend an iron supplement.

High-fat foods—five to eight toddler servings daily in the second year; five and a half to eight and a half in the third year.
After the second birthday, this allowance provides about 30% of daily calories from fat. One toddler serving (about 7 grams of fat) equals any of the following (keep in mind that the fat content of prepared foods can vary greatly; ask for nutrition information when available): ½ tablespoon polyunsaturated oil, olive oil, canola oil, butter, margarine, or mayonnaise; 1½ tablespoons cream cheese; 1 tablespoon peanut butter; ¼ small avocado; 1 egg; ¾ cup whole milk; 1½ cups 2% milk; ¾ cup whole-milk yogurt; ½ cup ice cream; 3 tablespoons half-and-half; 1 tablespoon heavy cream; 2 tablespoons sour cream;
²
/
₃
ounce hard cheese; 1½ ounces lean beef, lamb, or pork; 2½ ounces dark meat poultry (no skin); 3 ounces salmon or other fatty fish; ½ small slice of pizza; 9 French fries; ¾ of a kid-size burger; 2 chicken nuggets;
¹
/
₃
cup tuna salad.

Each of the following equals one-half toddler serving: 3 slices whole-grain
bread; ¼ cup wheat germ; 1
²
/
₃
cup 1% milk; 3 ounces tofu; 3½ ounces white meat poultry (no skin).

Salty foods—restrict added salt.
Salt. Who needs it? Actually, everyone needs salt—or rather the sodium in sodium chloride, otherwise known as table salt—but no one needs as much as the average American consumes. And since a taste for salt often takes hold in early childhood, restricting your toddler’s salt intake now may prevent a salt habit (and the potential health risks that come with it) later.

Children can get all the sodium they require from foods that contain it naturally (milk, yogurt, eggs, carrots, celery, for example) and foods that have salt added during the manufacturing process (bread and most other baked goods, cottage cheese and other cheeses, some cereals). To keep your toddler from overfilling the salty foods requirement and from developing a taste for such foods, add salt to foods rarely or not at all when cooking and limit the consumption of heavily salted foods such as potato chips, pretzels, corn and tortilla chips, pickles, green olives, and salted crackers. When you do tip the shaker, make sure it’s filled with iodized salt, to guard against iodine deficiency.

Fluids—four to six cups daily.
There’s water, water everywhere—including in the fruits and vegetables your toddler eats, which are 80% to 95% water. But in addition to the fluids found in these foods, your toddler will still need an
additional
4 to 6 cups of fluid a day to maintain a healthy fluid balance (toddlers, like the rest of us, are 50% to 75% water). Additional fluids are needed in hot weather or when a toddler has a fever, cold or other respiratory tract infection, or diarrhea or vomiting. Satisfy your toddler’s fluid requirement with fruit juice diluted with fluoridated tap water (apple and apple-based juices are best watered-down from the tap, both because of their high sugar content—see facing page—and because fluoridated tap water is a good way to get necessary fluoride into your toddler’s diet), vegetable juice, soups, sparkling water, or plain water. Milk (which is
¹
/
₃
milk solids) provides only
²
/
₃
of a fluid serving per cup.

Supplements.
To supplement or not to supplement—that’s the question that’s kept parents guessing as the medical community struggles to reach a consensus. Some doctors insist that healthy, thriving children do not need any supplements—that they’ll manage to get everything they need through their
diet. Others, pointing to the eccentric, erratic eating habits of toddlers, suggest that using a supplement as a kind of nutritional insurance makes good sense. Little research has been done on either side, though a few studies have shown a slight but significant increase in IQ in children who take vitamin supplements.

If you have any doubt that your toddler is getting his or her share of daily nutrients, it probably makes sense to invest in the nutritional insurance a daily vitamin-mineral supplement provides. As long as you keep in mind these two caveats. One, no supplement can replace a good diet; dosing your toddler with a supplement doesn’t mean you can slacken up on the Daily Dozen or the Nine Basic Principles. There are probably dozens, and possibly hundreds, of nutrients found naturally in foods that remain undiscovered; they can’t be packaged in supplements because scientists don’t yet know what they are. In addition, nutrients work better in foods (their natural setting) than they do in drops or pills. Two, the supplement you choose should be appropriate for a toddler and should
not
contain more than 100% of the RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for your child’s age (read labels carefully, since different percentages are usually listed for different age groups). Keep in mind that too many vitamins and minerals can be just as dangerous as too few (vitamins A and D, for example, can be toxic when taken at levels not much higher than the RDA). Do not give your toddler cod liver oil, which can contain toxic amounts of vitamin A.

Use a liquid preparation until your toddler’s molars are in, then switch to chewables (preferably sugar-free) when your child can be depended upon to chew a tablet thoroughly. (But because the tablet will contain vitamin C—also known as ascorbic acid—it should be chewed just before toothbrushing, or the mouth rinsed thoroughly after chewing.)

Be careful to keep a childproof cap on the vitamins, to store them well out of your toddler’s reach, and never to refer to them as “candy.” Their colors and shapes, aroma and taste can be extremely enticing, which is good, since it makes them attractive and palatable to children, and bad, since it can make them
too
tempting. Every year, tens of thousands of children ingest vitamin overdoses—often because the children were tempted by the attractive shapes and pleasant taste of the tablets, which just happened to be within reach.

If we’re not bemoaning the fact that our toddler is too chubby, we’re complaining that he or she is not chubby enough. Either we buy into the advertising industry hype that thin is in or we have an old-fashioned idealized image of the perfect toddler as plump and dimpled. But neither attitude is appropriate; children are individuals who burn calories at different rates. Some are destined to be on the round end of average their entire lives. Others can’t be cherubically chubby, no matter how hard their parents try. To further complicate the picture, weight and body build in the first few years of life is no sure predictor of future weight or build. And learned attitudes toward body shape, eating, and exercise habits developed early in life often alter genetic destiny.

Chubbiness is often in the eyes of the beholders. And when the beholders are parents terrified of turning out a fat child, as many of us are today, evidence of the perceived overweight doesn’t always show up on a toddler’s growth chart. Many parents tend to confuse normal baby fat and toddler body build with creeping obesity. Chubby cheeks, a round belly, and dimpled elbows and knees are typical toddler trademarks and not necessarily signs of overweight.

So if you suspect you’ve got a tubby toddler, plan a trip not to the diet foods section of the supermarket but to the doctor’s office. There, the possibility that your toddler is truly overweight can be explored and, if necessary, a plan of action mapped out. The doctor will probably consider two questions: One, in his or her medical opinion, does your toddler
look
overweight? And two, is your child’s weight 20% or more above the average for age, sex, and height? If the answer to both these questions is no, you can put aside your weighty worries for now; your toddler’s rotund physique is likely to eventually slim down to more comfortable proportions. If you’d like to help make a slimmer future more certain, or if you or your spouse has been fighting a weight problem all your life and you’d like your toddler to avoid that fate, you can follow the tips on the facing page, designed for the overweight toddler, but also useful to keep a toddler-on-the-brink from slipping into that category.

If your toddler is truly overweight, getting a hold on eating habits now will be even more important. Though being overweight in the toddler years doesn’t seem to increase a child’s risk for adult obesity, overweight by age four does. (It’s believed that of the estimated 10% to 40% of children who are overweight, 50% to 85% will be overweight as adults.) So now is the time to begin to weight the scales in your toddler’s favor. Consider:

What does your toddler eat?
Right now, it’s more important to concern yourself with the eating habits your child is developing than to worry excessively about the fat cells that may be proliferating. Letting your toddler get into the junk food habit now can easily condemn him or her to a never-ending battle with overweight. On the other hand, helping your child acquire a taste for whole grains, fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy products (after age two), and fruit-sweetened treats will go far in preventing future weight problems (and health problems as well).