Offering a healthy diet to your toddler

Snacks and treats
Your toddler is the best judge of her own appetite. She will stop eating when she's no longer hungry, and she won't starve herself. However, she will expect -- and in fact, she needs -- frequent small snacks to round out her daily diet. Learn to recognize your child's hunger signs, and try to offer her snack before the grumpiness, fatigue, requests for breast or bottle, or temper tantrums erupt.

Typically, snacks are served mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and sometimes before bed. Ideally, you offer foods that fall within the Food Guide's four essential categories. Avoid frequent servings of "other foods" such as chocolate bars and colas, whose high-fat and high-calorie content contribute only energy to your child's overall nutrition. By all means, allow your children to enjoy such foods in moderation -- even an ice-cream cone is a suitable snack choice.

Many Canadian parents were raised to think of food in terms of "good" and "bad" food. By extension, many people have learned to think of themselves as good or bad depending on the food they eat. You can help your children to have a more constructive attitude toward the food they eat by dividing it into different categories -- "everyday" foods and "sometimes" foods. The foods with high nutrient content -- the ones that make up the four food groups -- can be enjoyed frequently. "Sometimes" foods are usually the ones advertised most heavily during Saturday morning cartoons; they won't harm your child as long as they're add-ons to an already well-balanced diet.

It is true that children will select a well-balanced diet on their own when they are offered only healthy choices. Children naturally prefer a varied diet. But once junk foods are added to the menu, you can't rely on your child to make the right decisions. You will have to be vigilant, steering your child toward a healthy diet through a constant barrage of marketing hype.