ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the recent recommendations with regard to children’s diets and attempt to place them in the context of the science, or lack thereof, that underpins them. Recommendations for what children should be eating seem to fall into three categories: goals, commandments, and guidelines. For the first half of the twentieth century, the principal goal of nutritional science was to identify and quantify the nutrients which are necessary for optimal growth and development in infants, children, and adolescents. This goal has been realized, for the most part, for healthy infants and children, but remains an area of fertile research for those with unique nutritional needs, such as premature infants or children with chronic illnesses. In spite of the fact that people have quantified the daily requirements for nutrients such as iron, vitamin A, iodine, calcium, and vitamin K, to name just a few, controversy still surrounds these and other nutrients and their roles in children’s diets.
