What to Expect When Your Toddler Starts Eating

Once your baby reaches the one month stage he or she is no longer an infant. The first three years of life are a period of incredible growth in all areas of a baby's development.

Be sure too to read this chapter no matter how old your child is…a lot of wisdom here applies to children and also adults, especially in the nutrition sections.

From one year to two years old the child will learn how to feed him or herself many different foods. You might also see the toddler begin to use utensils such as a fork or a spoon. The toddler will be using actions and words to communicate thoughts and feeling. He or she may be showing you want he or she wants to eat, what he or she finds delicious and what he or she does not want to eat.

You might find the child is more willing to try new foods and be more willing to depend on herself instead of you.

The toddler is also going to start becoming quite messy. They love to play with their food and paint everything with it, including the tray, the big and you. Many toddlers will throw food and plates for fun and also drop food on the floor.

From two years to three years old the toddler might start choosing which foods to eat. He or she might use words to express thoughts and feelings.

This is the age at which your toddler will learn how to tell you he or she is full. This is very important in the long term for the health of your child. Knowing when to stop eating stops your toddler from growing up to be and overweight child.

Pay attention when your toddler makes a fuss about eating a certain food. It could be that the food is too strong in taste, too hot or even that your toddler is having a mild allergic reaction to it.

A happy toddler is not screaming, crying and protesting while eating. He or she may play with the food but usually they see meal time as a positive, even creative experience.

Understanding that your toddler needs to play with food helps they develop in a healthy way later in life.

From one to three years old, your toddler's palate will expand and so will your menu.
• Offer 3-4 healthy choices during mealtimes
• Offer 2-3 healthy snacks a day.
• Stop making separate meals for the toddler and integrate what the whole family is eating into the toddler diet
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One of the most important things you can do for a toddler is to eat at the same time every day. This helps them get used to the idea of meal-time

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Unhealthy Teen Eating Patterns

Health eating is crucial for teenagers. Adolescence is a time when they may be growing at a rapid rate. Hormones act up and cause all kinds of changes, as well as erratic behavior. It is essential to each a teenager how to make wise food choices as they will be having more and more meals outside of the family home at this age.

One habit that many teens get into is skipping meals. Watch out for this as this could also be a sign that they are doing recreational drugs or trying stick with some kind of fad diet. If you suspect your teen is skipping meals for any reason insisted that they take a full range of vitamin supplements to make out of it.

There are two very harmful patterns to watch out for in adolescents as they could signify real problems are store for him or her in later life. The first is undereating and the second is overeating.

Teens that undereat, particularly girls, really do tend to become anorexics or bulemics. Anorexia is a behavioral disorder that is the result of a young girl having a distorted self-image. No matter how thin she gets she never seems thin enough. Every time she looks in the mirror she seems ugly and fat.

This also leads to bulimia, which is the act of throwing up your food every time you eat. If your child disappears into the bathroom after every meal time you might want to make sure that she is not throwing up in order to remain thin. You should also make sure that he or she is not taking laxatives to keep weight down as long term every day use of these can damage the intestines and other digestive organs.

Bulemia also causes a great deal of trouble because the vomit can cause damage to the esophagus and teeth. A girl with this problem might be acting depressed, drink a lot of diet tea and have a highly irregular menstrual cycle.

Binge eating is just as bad. A teen will sit down and eat way too much food and then possibly throw up later. Those who do not throw up end up gaining a lot of weight; many end up gaining way too much weight.

To help out a teen who may be comforting him or herself by binge eating it is a good idea to send him or her to a counselor or psychologist to find out what might be at the bottom of feelings that are causing the problem. It is important to nip problems like anorexia, bulimia and binge eating in youth as they can develop in a life-long pattern that leads to severe health problem and a possible early death.

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