Have a fruit bowl permanently available – full and sporting ripe and fresh fruit. Don’t allow chocolate, sweets, cakes, crisps and other junk foods to become everyday foods. Just get them in for special occasions only. Encourage them to drink water and enjoy it, by serving water with every meal. Put water in a jugRead More
Hayley Kuter Archives
Measuring children – not as easy as it sounds!
As a specialist paediatric dietitian, I am committed to ongoing professional development (‘CPD’) and that’s part of the reason why I’m so involved in research – either through editing scientific papers, being part of research projects, or analysing medical research papers for the latest evidence (usually accompanied by a mug of tea!). An area thatRead More
Milk ladders
Food allergy management used to be simple: avoid avoid avoid!! Research is increasingly telling us that this may not always be the best tactic. Allergy to cow’s milk involves an immune response to proteins in cow’s milk. But, food processing such as cooking or baking at high temperatures, exposure to low pH and enzymatic digestionRead More
Peanuts and Eggs during weaning – when to introduce?
I’m often asked about when to introduce foods that could potentially cause an allergic reaction. In the past, children have been held off eating peanuts up until their third birthday or possibly longer. However, it’s now thought that avoiding certain foods like peanuts or eggs may actually increase a child’s risk of being allergic. ExclusiveRead More
Fibre for children
Dietitians are always looking for new evidence and over the past few weeks in my spare time I’ve been busy researching the science behind dietary fibre for children. I wrote an article in a professional magazine and gave a talk to paediatric dietitians about the benefits of including fibre in children’s diets. So here’s aRead More
Children with Life-Limiting Conditions
Last week I was invited to speak to a group of health professionals who do the amazing job of looking after babies on Neonatal Units across the north west. My topic was ‘nutrition in paediatric palliative care’ – not everyone’s favourite subject but something that does require careful thought and understanding. In my research forRead More
New tool to detect Cow’s Milk Allergy
Quite often, cow’s milk allergy goes undetected. Symptoms are either vague, seemingly unrelated and I’ve even heard from many parents that health professionals can label parents’ concerns as being slightly neurotic. A new tool has been launched which can help parents and health professionals determine whether symptoms are related to cow’s milk allergy. Divided intoRead More
Eco Eating
One of the little pamphlets that arrived in one of my professional newsletters this week was about eating a diet with a low environmental impact. The authors state that sustainable diets are those which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Basically, a healthy diet and an ecologically friendlyRead More
Bone Mass and Activity
The prevalence of osteoporosis is increasing in modern society. Fragile bones make life difficult and painful. We know that our adult bone mass was determined during childhood. Read More
Peanuts for children
Peanut allergy – potentially life threatening – is on the rise. More people are allergic to peanuts than ever before, and yet this is despite them being a banned substance in many places. Schools, airlines, even cafes and food labels are all hot on avoiding peanuts. Fresh results of the LEAP study might explain why weRead More
Caffeinated Kids?
We may not like to admit it, but most of us are probably not able to get through a single day without a hit of caffeine. Tea, coffee, soft-drinks, energy drinks and even some medicines all contain this addictive drug. Caffeine’s benefits have been known throughout the world for many years: by blocking the neurotransmitter adenosine,Read More
Bottled water for infants
The summer holiday season is upon us, and I am often asked about using bottled water to make up infant formulas when abroad. There are three different sources of water: tap water – contains chloride and fluoride with all other minerals removed during the treatment process, bottled water – which is expected to conform toRead More
Vitamin D Calculator
Many of my friends and colleagues know that I’m very interested in Vitamin D. I attended a professional update on Vitamin D in London last week and was excited to see a couple of new developments: a vitamin D supplement that comes in a mouth spray (tablets can be hard to swallow especially for children)Read More
Powering Your Junior Athlete
I was inspired after meeting a top junior athlete today to write about nutrition for athletic children. I am an athlete myself and have competed for several years – sometimes at an elite level – as a runner. I also work as a sports dietitian and work with young talented athletes mostly via a talentRead More
Vitamin D – vital for winter!
It’s that time of year again – leaves are falling, days are getting shorter, summer holidays now long forgotten….and our vitamin D levels are about to plummet. If there’s one vitamin I recommend for all children, it’s vitamin D. We know that British toddlers receive less than 30% of the recommended amount of daily vitaminRead More
Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.
As a dietitian, I usually steer well clear of popular diet books, the latest diet fads or celebrity weight-loss plans. You might think this is akin to burying my head in the sand – but I really dislike spending any time thinking about diet crazes and worry about how certain foods or nutrients are theRead More
Learning to like vegetables – should we disguise the taste?
Not enough vegetables are eaten by children. We know that from thousands of studies across the western world, and it’s evident from our rising problems with obesity in this country. Vegetables are low in energy and dense in nutrients – which makes them a very important part of children’s diets. The main trouble is actuallyRead More
Allergy-free recipes
I’m always trying to find a good source of tried, tested and reviewed recipes that are allergy-friendly. By chance today I’ve come across PigIntheKitchen – a blog with a host of recipes for dairy, gluten, egg and other allergies. The gluten-free, egg-free, milk-free carrot cake looks amazing – I can’t wait to try it myself. HappyRead More
We can’t all be Olympians but…
With the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics now drawn to a close, we can reflect on both the success of these amazing sporting events and some of the controversy that surrounded the games beforehand; from the amount of money spent, to the sponsors being purveyors of high calorie junk food and drinks companies (I’m not going toRead More
Table manners at all-time low
Texting whilst at the dinner table, not washing hands before a meal, and scoffing food in a hurry are all examples of the table manners in decline as found by a survey at the recent Birmingham Food Fest (July 13-19). The tradition of eating as a family, and savouring the meal in front of usRead More