The American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s leading pediatricians’ group,  is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to require warning labels on foods that are known choking hazards, and to evaluate and monitor food for safety. The Academy says that food should be subject to monitoring in the same way as toys. Children under 4 are particularly at risk because their airways are small and also because they are just developing their eating abilities. While front teeth grown in around 6 to 7 months, molars don’t come in until around 15 months. Young babies can bite off the end of a hotdog, but then can not chew it, creating a choking hazard. This also creates a...

Jane Brody again has another immensely readable and helpful column in the New York Times that summarizes Michael Pollan’s newest book, Food Rules. The article is worth a read once a week, or maybe even once a day, because our entire culture really is constantly reminding us to break those “rules” of good nutrition. “Have a syrupy drink. Munch a crunchy oily snack. Eat a sugary cookie. Maybe just one. You deserve it.” The best parent is fighting a continuous battle to teach good eating habits at least while the kids are at home, not too raise scrawny lactose-free vegans who can’t eat anything and look like it, but to raise kids who develop a taste for things...

The eating habits of American children appear to be shifting. And for a change, the news is good. Chicken nuggets, burgers, fries and colas remain popular with the under-13 set, of course. But new market research shows that consumption of these foods at restaurants is declining, while soup, yogurt, fruit, grilled chicken and chocolate milk are on the rise. The findings, based on survey data by the Chicago market research firm NPD Group, follow a report last year that childhood obesity appears to have hit a plateau after rising for more than two decades. That finding, reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association, has been greeted with guarded optimism, and it remains unclear whether...

A new study published online in Social Science and Medicine says that parents’ eating habits actually have little to do with what kids eat. The national study, which looked at a representative sample of 2291 parents and 2692 children found little similarity between kids’ and parents’ diets, with just a slight edge moms versus dads. However, the study did show that, especially as kids get older, peers have a far larger effect, with more similarities within peer groups. Kids do tend to eat what other kids are eating. The study did not try to analyze why parents’ and kids’ diets don’t resemble each other more, but suggests that parents aren’t doing as good...