Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health: Birth Through Age Six [Paperback]

Susan Roberts (Author), Melvin B. Heyman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 3, 1999

How the new science of "metabolic programming" can help you:

Maximize your baby's IQ and development

Prevent allergies and obesity

Prevent or cure picky eating

Teach your child to enjoy healthy foods

Protect against family health problems

AND make mealtimes a pleasure for you and your child!


In this groundbreaking book, two leading pediatric nutritionists--and experienced parents!--introduce exciting new research into "metabolic programming" and make it accessible and practical for every busy parent. They explain:

How the foods you choose can optimize your baby's future development, IQ bone strength, and immunity

The eight key nutrients to focus on

Scientifically based "smart strategies" for working with your child's inborn instincts to build healthy eating habits

Food solutions for common problems--including colic, constipation, poor sleep, and hyperactivity

How to prevent or deal with food allergies or obesity

Easy ways to adapt family meals for kids--with menus and portion sizes for every stage from birth through age six, plus essential tips for food safety

What's more, you can teach your child to enjoy these healthy foods and banish food battles and picky eating forever.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book tastes great and it's good for you, too. Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health: Birth Through Age Six is based on the principle of "metabolic programming," the scientifically rooted idea that foods eaten in early childhood directly affect the function of individual cells that control strength, intelligence, the immune system, and other vital functions. Think of it as a convoluted molecular take on the old maxim "You are what you eat." Genetics and other external factors also play a role, of course, but those factors are beyond our control. What goes on the dinner table, however, is not. The point of this book is to help parents teach their kids to like healthful foods, thus getting them into a lifelong habit of eating well and staying healthy.

There is a fair amount of science in this book, but the clear writing and good organization make it go down easy. Particularly helpful are the numerous graphs and boxes that highlight such topics as the best sources of calcium and iron (and why too much iron is dangerous), the differences between breast milk and formula, the eight key nutrients for different ages, and how to identify and even prevent allergies and intolerance to certain foods. The recipes, sample meals, healthy snacks, and tips for dealing with finicky eaters are alone worth the price of the book. Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health is an invaluable guide to ensuring that not only will your kids eat their vegetables, they'll even ask for seconds. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

Tufts nutrition professor Roberts and pediatrician Heyman offer their approach to childhood nutrition in a practical, easy-to-use guide suited for any parent with children under six years old. Pointing to the importance of "metabolic programming" (food's effect on intelligence, personality, immunity, strength, etc.), the authors argue that how a child eats is as important as what a child eats in preventing obesity, allergies and childhood cancers. Focusing on eight key nutrients (fat, fiber, calories, iron, calcium, zinc, folate, antioxidants) for optimal health, the authors offer a variety of age-specific sample menus and caloric requirements, height and weight charts, healthful recipes and answers to frequently asked nutrition questions. Roberts and Heyman dispel misconceptions (that supplements are unnecessary for young children and the possible false link between sugar and hyperactivity) and suggest what foods are to be avoided and why. Through the use of their age-appropriate, low-key behavioral techniquesAwhich emphasize the importance of good parent role-modeling, on-demand feeding, the potential need to introduce unpopular foods repeatedly and the ability to use a child's natural eating instinctsAthe authors make pleasurable and healthy mealtimes for the family attainable. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (August 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553378929
• ISBN-13: 978-0553378924
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally - a balanced approach to feeding children January 7, 2000

By Jennifer Crawford

Format:Paperback

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.

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Resource for Parents of Young Children May 15, 2000

By Elizabeth Hendry VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is really quite informative and helpful (but I must warn that most parents may feel at least a tad disappointed in what they have fed their children to date, the authors are a bit unforgiving in that area, which is why it got 4 and not 5 stars). I only wish that I had had this book 4 years ago when my first child was born. The book has lots of wonderful information that frankly I have not found anywhere else. It tells you how much of each nutrient your child will need at various ages and suggests some child friendly sources for those nutrients. What the book does not have is an instantaneous solution for getting a vegetable hater to eat vegetables. Their answer to this problem is to keep offering it and eventually they will eat their vegetables (or whatever else it is you want them to eat). I have been trying this forever with my daughter and it only works with non-green vegetables. They do provide some excellent advice on preventing picky eaters (which I have followed with my second and which works). One way I judge books such as these is to decide if the book could have been condensed into a useful magazine article, or if the content really needed to be put into a book. The information in Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health definitely belongs in a book. There are not many wasted pages or irrelevant information. I highly recommend this book to all parents of young children, with the caveats discussed above.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative guide to develop healthy eating habits in kids August 16, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is the new MUST HAVE gift for all baby showers! August 11, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN - BUY THIS BOOK August 17, 1999

By John Speakman ([e-mail])

Format:Paperback

Over the course of their first six years of life we probably spend in the region of 20-30 thousand dollars on food for each of our children. What we give them to eat will have lifelong effects on them. Given the size of this investment and its importance I don't think anyone can afford not to take some guidance from experts about exactly how to proceed.

As a scientist working on obesity and a parent of two young children I found this excellent book worked well at two different levels. First it satisfied my scientific curiosity about why certain things were important in a very readable and understandable way, but second it actually showed me how to put the theory into practice with my own children. It is this latter reason why this book is such a winner. It is all very well to tell people that children should eat more vegetables and less sweets - this book shows you how to achieve it.

At just over 12$ the value for money is just amazing. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that if you have children under 6, or are planning a family this will be the best 12$ you ever spent. BUY IT NOW. There arn't enough stars in the amazon.com system to recommend it.