Take A Step On The MyPyramid for Preschoolers

You probably already know about the Food Pyramid from the USDA. What you may not know is that now there is a new version just for pre-schoolers (2-5 years old) called MyPyramid for Preschoolers. On this website, you can get a lot of useful information, all in one place. Check it out.

You can make a customized MyPyramid plan for your toddler based on age, sex and level of physical activity. One problem is that the age selection is only in whole years, so if your toddler is say 2 and a half years old (like ours), you probably want to pick 3 years. Here is how it looks for our boy (Armaan) and our girl (Asya). It gives you details of how many calories and how much from each food group you should be feeding each day. Click the thumbnail for full size image.

In the Grow Up Healthy section, you can prepare a growth chart for your toddler based on height and weight. This is what you get when you visit your Pediatrician. Now, you don’t need to wait the whole year before the next physical check-up to get this information. A growth chart can help you monitor the growth of your toddler and compare it to other children of the same age and sex. One word of caution – don’t get carried away by what you see on the chart. In my opinion, you should pay more attention to the overall growth pattern over time rather than a single point on this chart. Check out the What Influences Growth section that describes the factors that affect the growth patterns of preschoolers. Notice the value of nutrition and sleep! I would also add physical activity level in this section if I had my way. But then there is a separate section on that (see below).
Under Healthy Eating Habits and Picky Eaters sections, you would find useful tips for developing good feeding habits at an early age. I was familiar with most of their advice on this section; one thing that caught my eye was their advice on how to cope with marketing and advertising on TV. It is a good read and I recommend it.
Under Physical Activity there is good information on how much (60 minutes per day, does not need to be all at once), outdoor and indoor activities, and safety. The most important thing to remember is that you are a role model for them; therefore if you maintain an active lifestyle, they will learn to do so too.
Very good tips for Food Safety regarding general hygiene, snacking, choking hazards, food handling and food preparation.
There are also ideas for Sample Meals and Snacks (based on the recommended calorie level – first make the customized MyPyramid Plan) and More Information on food groups with examples of different types of foods and the serving size in each group.