‘Children have to be taught to eat well. Feeding practices can have a positive impact on healthy eating habits that last into adulthood.’ Professor Lynne Daniels
The greatest nutritional risk for children in Australia over the last 20 years is not becoming underweight, as in past generations, but instead the risk of obesity - with up to one in four children currently overweight.
These children are much more likely to become overweight adults with increased risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Our research has shown that child (and adult) eating habits may be established from as young as 6 months of age, when parents introduce solids to their children.
Our research team, lead by Professor Lynne Daniels, was awarded $820,558 in National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding in 2011 to follow up a successful obesity prevention study called NOURISH. This study monitored nearly 700 mothers and their babies until age two. Our interim results suggest that the program has been effective at 14 months. The funding will allow us to follow up the children at 3.5 years as they move more into the outside world where their mother has less control over what they eat and at five years old, just as they start school.
NOURISH is a program for first time mothers to promote helpful early feeding practices in two themes: 1) Learning to Like – whereby parents give children access to a wide range of healthy foods and; 2) Parent Provides, Child Decides – whereby the parent is responsible for providing healthy food choices, and the child decides what and how much they eat.