Last weekend, I had an opportunity to talk to several parents of young children at a local cultural event. I did a short survey with them to learn more about their issues and concerns. One of the questions was designed to find out which sources of information they rely on for advice on child nutrition. I did a similar survey last year and I reported the results in this article. I have now added the new data for this update.

This data set now has  a total of 202 picks from 97 respondents from the blog, Global Toddlers and the recent cultural event.

Here is how the question was posed:

Where do you go for advice on toddler nutrition? Pick 3

1. Your pediatrician
2. Nutritionist or Registered Dietitian
3. Internet
4. Trusted friend/family
5. Books or Magazines
6. Networking group
7. Other

And here is chart showing the results:

Top 3 sources of child nutrition advice for most parents are Internet, Pediatrician and Books/Magazines.

I think that there is a tremendous opportunity for registered dietitians to connect with parents and offer them credible, science-based, actionable information. They get extensive training in all aspects of nutrition and many of them have graduate degrees. I believe they can bridge the gap between the pediatrician, who is unlikely to spend a lot of time addressing nutrition needs of a child, and the internet, where nutrition information tends to be largely fragmented across websites of dubious credibility. I have had a wonderful experience working with over 30 registered dietitians who have answered reader questions in my Ask the Expert column.

What do you think? Are you surprised by these results?

I would love to hear your opinion on the results of this poll. If you did not get a chance to vote in this survey, please feel free to leave a comment with your picks.

©2010 Littlestomaks.com

Hope you all had a wonderful July 4th holiday weekend!

I want to share with you some of the feedback I received in comments coming from readers as part of last week’s Independence Day Giveaway. The response was tremendous – over 150 people left 245 comments and over 100 subscribed to my weekly newsletter. I am deeply grateful for your interest in my blog and truly appreciate what you all are telling me by way of candid feedback in your comments. Please continue to share your thoughts in future.

Here is what I asked last week

• What is your favorite category of articles on Littlestomaks.com?
• What would you like to see more of on this blog?
• What would you like to see less of on this blog?
• If you could ask one question to your pediatrician or a nutrition expert about your child’s nutrition, what would it be?

Favorite categories

Simple Recipes was clearly the most favored category by most people. Organic Foods, Helpful Tips, Ask the Expert and Five for Fridays also got into the top 5 with five or more votes. Here is a chart showing the final votes-

What you would like to see more of on this blog

More Giveaways!

That is what most of you would like to see more of! Giveaways are fun, aren’t they? Well, we will try to have them more often in future, although I cannot gurantee anything specific right now. Surely, there are many other websites and blogs who do giveaways as a way to drive traffic and increase their page rank in search engines. Nothing wrong with that, although I like to think that you prefer to visit my blog for credible, real-life toddler nutrition information and not simply for a chance to win a giveaway. Still, no harm in having fun via giveaways once in a while! So continue to keep an eye on them in future.

Here are a few more topics you would like to see in future -

• More toddler friendly recipes, low calorie recipes, vegetarian recipes
• Recipes for children with allergies
• Recipes that involve kids in preparing them
• Recipes with simple, inexpensive ingredients
• Product reviews
• Toddler feeding tips, picky eater tips
• Organic foods, whole foods

What you would like to see less of on this blog

I did not get  a lot of feedback on this question.

Some of you would prefer a little less of Global Toddlers.

My vision for this category is to reach out to Moms of toddlers all over the world so we can learn concerns about nutrition, share recipes and helpful tips. We have had great success so far with Moms from Germany, India, USA, Singapore, Canada and Denmark giving us a glimpse of their toddler’s nutritional profile and sharing tips or asking a question. I want to continue this dialog and reach out to other Moms in different countries. But I do take your feedback seriously. If you have any specific ideas on how to make this concept work better for you, please let me know.

Questions for a dietitian or pediatrician

A lot of excellent feedback on this topic! Over 40 different questions were asked, so I will not list all of them here. But hang on, because you will see them addressed in the weekly Ask the Expert column.

Thank you again for the excellent feedback. I appreciate your comments – please keep them coming! Feel free to send me an email via the Contact Us page if you would rather share your opinion off the record!

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Recently I posed this question on my blog because I have been interested in learning from toddler parents about their most preferred sources of information on nutrition. This is one of the questions in my weekly Global Toddlers survey, but I also wanted to open it up to everybody else. I collected a total of 147 picks from 51 voters on the blog and 18 Global Toddlers respondents.

Here is the original question:

Where do you go for advice on toddler nutrition? Pick 3

1. Your pediatrician
2. Nutritionist or Registered Dietitian
3. Internet
4. Trusted friend/family
5. Books or Magazines
6. Networking group
7. Other

And here is  chart showing the results:

These results may seem surprising – after all, it would be quite reasonable to expect that most parents would pick either the Pediatrician or Trusted friend/family since they would give the most credible advice. In fact, only 29 parents picked Pediatrician (42% of 69 parents who responded). The number for Trusted friend/family was even lower at just 20 out of a total of 69.

But if you give this question a little thought, these results are hardly a surprise. After all, you see your pediatrician usually when your child is sick or if you are going there for a routine exam. There isn’t much time during those visits to get all of your nutrition questions answered in detail. At least that’s what we have experienced. Things seem so rushed when visiting the doctor’s office. We seem to spend more time waiting than talking with the doctor!

And as far as trusted family and friends are concerned, sure they can provide sound, well-meaning advice based on their own experiences, but it is unlikely that they would truly understand your unique situation. We all live busy lives, and just like our doctors, it might not be possible to talk to them often enough to get nutrition related information. I also have a hunch that when you ask for their advice, there is a part of you which feels kind of “pressured” to act on it since you want to be able to “report” the results when you talk to them again. I would love to hear your feelings about this.

From this point of view, it is not surprising that a lot of toddler parents rely on indirect sources of information like the internet and books or magazines. There surely is a lot of nutrition information on the internet, but in my experience it is fragmented across many different websites, some of which may not be completely reliable. On top of that, the topic of toddler nutrition rarely is the main topic on these websites, and as such, does not receive the attention it deserves.

To address this gap, I recently launched a weekly column called Ask the Expert. It is my sincere hope that this column can provide highly credible nutrition information in a simple question-answer format to toddler parents. In the coming weeks, you will hear from several experts (pediatricians, registered dietitians). Please post your questions so I can continue to bring their professional advice to you through this blog.

I would love to hear your opinion on the results of this poll. If you did not get a chance to vote in this survey, please feel free to leave a comment with your picks.

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Slightly more than half of the 43 people who voted on my recent poll on multivitamins said they used a daily multivitamin supplement for their toddlers, and a majority of them preferred the gummies and chewable tablets instead of liquids or other forms. It seems like the use of multivitamins is a 50/50 shot – about half of the parents use them and the other half do not.

Here is the original question:

What kind of a daily multivitamin supplement do you use for your toddler?

1. Chewable Tablets
2. Gummies
3. Liquid Drops
4. Other
5. Not giving

And here is a chart showing the complete results:

Most pediatricians and nutrition experts do not recommend the use of multivitamins as the first choice for meeting your toddler’s nutritional requirements. Rather, a balanced diet rich with different fruits and veggies is preferred. However, most parents of toddlers 2-5 years old struggle with picky eating habits and not enough fruits and veggies. So it is not surprising that the use of multivitamins is right around 50% even though you can find many different brands packed on the store shelves. It is also not a surprise that the most common types of multivitamins used are chewable tablets and gummies because that is what is usually available. Liquid multivitamins are better since they are more easily absorbed by the body but they are also more difficult to formulate and are usually more expensive. Here is a review of a liquid multivitamin formula based on herbal extracts and fruit juices.

What do you think about these results? Share your story.

I have asked this question on my Global Toddler survey, but I want to open this one up for everybody in a new poll on my blog. Please vote, and if you feel like it, leave a comment explaining your vote.

So where do you go for advice on toddler nutrition?

1. Your pediatrician
2. Nutritionist or Registered Dietitian
3. Internet
4. Trusted friend/family
5. Books or Magazines
6. Networking group
7. Other

Select up to 3 out of these 7 categories. I would love to hear your comments, especially if you choose the “other” category. Feel free to share your reasons for relying on your preferred sources.

©2009 Littlestomaks.com

40% of the people who voted on my recent poll about nutrition concerns said they were most concerned about their toddlers not getting enough fruits and veggies. If you are struggling with this issue, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone!

Here is the original question:

What is your top concern about your toddler’s nutrition?

1. Does not eat enough
2. Too much sugar
3. Too many snacks
4. Not enough fruits and veggies
5. I have no concerns

And here is a chart showing the complete results:

Total Votes = 108

A pleasant surprise was that 18% of the respondents said that they did not have any concerns. Kudos to these parents! If you happen to feel this way, I invite you to share your tips with other parents in the comments section.

What do you think about these results? Any surprises here? Share your story.