The Yale Guide to Children's Nutrition

Authoritative advice from a team of experts, mostly pediatric specialists and nutritionists, makes this a reassuring handbook for concerned parents. Coverage is comprehensive, with topics ranging from breast-feeding infants to stoking adolescent athletes. The book is broken into six sections that can be read or consulted in any order: From Infancy to Adolescence, which treats developmental nutrition; Common Concerns, which tackles such issues as proper weight gain and dealing with picky eaters; Beyond the Basics, which addresses special problems, such as feeding children with diabetes, cystic fibrosis or food allergies; Building Blocks for Good Nutrition; Eating In, Eating Out, which proffers practical advice on school lunches and fast foods; and Recipes, which provides 69 recipes from assorted restaurant chefs, complete with preparation times and nutritional analyses. While some food combinations, such as pasta with shrimp and zucchini, or yellow turnips with shallots, seem of questionable appeal to kids, and the recipes for Vegetarian Lasagna and Sweet Corn Ravioli are rather time-consuming for busy parents, most dishes are fairly uncomplicated and have whole-family appeal--witness the Banana-Split Pancakes and Pizza Presto. The liberal use of tables, charts and lists makes all the helpful data relatively digestible. BOMC and Children's BOMC selections. (Mar.)