Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health: Birth Through Age Six

Drs Roberts and Heyman have struck the right balance of solid medical facts and personal experience with their own children in Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health. And balance is just what we need on this topic! I've found other child nutrition books to be heavy-handed, with agendas that are not always about doing what's right for your child and without much scientific backup. This book provides realistic strategies for dealing with an often-difficult and emotional issue - without the guilt! My own experience with my two-year old daughter tells me that they are dispensing very sensible advice. My daughter is a healthy and adventurous eater. It makes life so much easier when mealtime is a pleasure, not a battle. The two points I found to be most helpful: 1) if you don't want them to have it, don't keep it in the house; and 2) whatever a child eats within the first 2 years of life is what they come to know as "safe" or acceptable foods, so variety is key in that time-frame. I hope many, many parents read and benefit from this book.

With a toddler and an infant always on the go, who has time to read another parenting book? But this one hooked me right away with the realization that the "healthy" low-fat, high-fiber food I'd been feeding my family was not necessarily the best thing for my children at their different stages of growth. "Feeding Your Child.." helped me better understand food from a child's point of view - mentally and physically. Lots of popular misconceptions like mine are unveiled, with loads of easy-to-use everyday feeding advice. An excellent book for any parent or caregiver who wants to help children enjoy healthy food, in a developmentally appropriate manner. (And for those of us in need of the occasional quick fix, the comprehensive index and table of contents make it very easy to locate specific topics.)

I found the information in this book well organized and clearly focused on how to develop good lifelong eating habits in children. This book provides the kind of comprehensive information on growth and nutrition that you are unable to get in short, well child checks at the pediatricians' office. As a mother of an infant and a toddler the book provided clear advice on how to direct better food choices for my toddler and avoid repeating many of the same feeding problems with my infant. I recomend it for anyway who is concerned with developing healthy and life long eating habits in their children and family.

FEEDING YOUR CHILD FOR LIFELONG HEALTH strikes me as a book that will become as indispen- sible an addition to a new mother's library as the currently invaluable WHAT TO EXPECT... series (...THE FIRST YEARS;...THE TODDLER YEARS). It was exciting to discover a book devoted entirely to the very complicated and perplexing business of feeding a child. I'm the mother of an almost-two year old, and upon opening this book I found myself quickly absorbed. I had never heard of "metabolic programming"--the concept that what and how you feed your child permanantly affect his/her metabolism, eating habits and tastes, and even IQ levels, later in life. Anxious to get on the right track, I was able to easily fast forward to the chapter dealing with my "terrific terrible two". Included were strategies to help with common feeding issues and difficulties in this age group, as well as recipes and sample menus. Especially helpful is the appendix of good food sources. I count this book an essential tool in helping to realize my dream of giving my daughter the best start possible for a lifetime of physical health and mental well being.