Toddlers perceived by their mothers as picky eaters had significantly lower dietary variety and diversity scores. Parents need information and strategies to increase the number of foods acceptable to their toddlers and to develop a sound feeding plan.
OBJECTIVE:To assess preschool children's food consumption (24 ± 60 months) and relate these ®ndings to body composition at 70 AE 2 months. DESIGN: A longitudinal study of children's dietary intakes for selected nutrients and servings of dairy products. SUBJECTS: Fifty-three white children participating in a longitudinal study (2 ± 96 months) of children's food practices and growth. MEASUREMENTS: Using in-home interviews and trained interviewers, 18 days of dietary data and measured height and weight of each child at 6 month intervals were collected. Body composition was determined by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. RESULTS: Dietary fat was 30 ± 33% of energy with saturated and monounsaturated fat intakes b 10% and polyunsaturated`10%. Adjusting for body mass index (BMI), GLM models to predict percent body fat (%BF) or grams of total fat (gTF) with mean longitudinal calcium intake (%BF: R 2 0.51, F 7.88, P`0.0001; gTF: R 2 0.51, F 9.84, P 0.0001) or total servings of dairy products (%BF: R 2 0.47, F 6.93, P`0.0001; gTF: R 2 0.47, F 8.31, P`0.0001) as independent variables gave signi®cant results. Higher mean longitudinal calcium (mgaday) intakes and more servingsaday of dairy products were associated with lower body fat. Males had signi®cantly less body fat (P 0.01) than females. CONCLUSIONS: Higher longitudinal intakes of calcium, monounsaturated fat, and servings of dairy products were associated with lower body fat.
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