Food intake of young children

Introduction: Early childhood is a critical phase for shaping basic eating behaviors and food preferences that impact an individual long-term physical and mental condition. A little child takes over eating habits from his or her parents and their improvement later in life is difficult. Methods: An analysis of eating habits of Czech children aged 12-23 months. The data was obtained in a cross-sectional retrospective questionnaire study. The questionnaires were completed by children's mothers addressed in public places. Results: Almost a quarter (24.4%) of mothers still breast-fed a child after his or her first year of life and the toddlers were fed at average 4.3 times a day. The average age of child when his or her mother stopped its breast-feeding was 8.5 months. The most frequent reason of weaning the child was a paucity or loss of breast milk. More than third (38.5%) of children received the non-milk fluids before the end of the 6th month. And approximately one-third (27.8%) of children obtained the non-milk food before the end of the 6th month. Toddlers got the meals at average 5.3 times a day. Most (83.3%) of mothers had no difficulties with children's feeding. The most frequent eating problem was pickiness. In 28.0% of families the parents let the TV turned on during the mealtime and 58.3% of..