Whether you’re a new parent or experienced, you want to make sure your child is getting the best nutritious diet possible, but it can be hard to understand what it is your child should be eating.
Parenting on Female First
If your child is a fussy eater or it proves difficult to find the appropriate balanced diet, there is now an easier way to understand what your child should be eating.
A new app created by the Infant & Toddler Forum (ITF), Tot It Up, provides a personal analysis of a toddler’s daily and weekly food intake compared against current recommendations. It also provides tips on how to make small changes to maintain the right balance.
As we continue to hear about high sugar levels in foods and increasing obesity, as parents, it is a concerning matter that we are faced with each day.
The app allows parents and carers place details of what meals, snacks and drinks their toddler has consumed throughout the day and the week, as well as the amount of physical activity he or she has done, to receive a personalised analysis with advice on improving diet and physical activity.
Judy More, paediatric dietitian and ITF member said: “Young children need nutritious food for their rapid growth and development, but have good and bad days when it comes to eating. So it’s best to consider the balance of foods eaten over the week."
She adds: "The Tot It Up food calculator allows parents to see how their toddler’s diet over a week, or a day, compares to current recommendations. Often parents find their toddler is eating better than they thought and this helps to remove the stress from mealtimes. When parents feel more relaxed and confident in feeding their toddler a problem of fussy eating may resolve.
The App is the latest resource from the ITF which aims to arm parents with practical tools and advice to help them feed their toddlers in line with their nutritional needs at this important stage in their development. Tot It Up is available from the Apple App store.