Feeding infants and toddlers study: what foods are infants and toddlers eating?
Section snippets
Methods
The FITS includes a stratified random sample of 3,022 infants and toddlers between 4 and 24 months of age. Parents or primary caregivers of sampled infants and toddlers completed a single 24-hour dietary recall. Recalls were collected between March and July 2002, using the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDS-R; version 4.03, 2001, University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center, Minneapolis, MN). Although a second 24-hour recall was obtained for a subsample of the population to allow
Breast milk, formula, and cow’s milk
Virtually all infants and toddlers younger than 15 months consumed some form of milk in a day (Table 2). Forty percent of 4- to 6-month-old infants consumed at least some breast milk. This percentage dropped precipitously between 4 to 6 months and 7 to 8 months and continued to decline through 15 to 24 months, when only 4% to 5% of toddlers consumed any breast milk. [Breastfeeding rates, duration, and patterns are discussed in detail elsewhere (18)].
Infant formula was the most common source of
Discussion
Much of the published research on food consumption patterns of infants and toddlers has focused on breastfeeding, the use of cow’s milk, and/or the timing of the introduction of solid foods 19, 20, 21. The 1994 to 1996, 1998 CSFII included infants and toddlers; however, published tables report data only for broad age ranges (<1 year, 1 year, and 2 years) and exclude breastfed infants and toddlers 16, 17. The FITS data provide a more comprehensive picture of food consumption habits of infants
Applications
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• Dietary guidance provided to parents and caregivers should stress the importance of meeting the special nutritional needs of infants and toddlers and the potential impacts of early food preferences and eating habits over the long term. Because family food choices influence what foods are offered to children, family-based approaches to developing healthy eating habits may be helpful.
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• The FITS data suggest that dietetics professionals consider the following points when providing guidance for
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