Portion Control Opportunities in Children's Diets

Key factors that make it hard for both parents and children to manage portion size and some recent developments on how to support portion size management on a practical basis, are discussed. These include, a key problem is that today's food environments in most Western-world countries are not very supportive of healthy portion choice. Another reason why it is so hard to manage portion sizes is related to the value conflicts that parents experience when feeding their young children, as the conflict arises when satisfying one value that would prevent meeting another value. Moreover, the portion size management tools for children include, (More and Emmett 2015, First Steps Nutrition Trust 2008), although they do not cover all age ranges, which have been developed by nutritionists and are based on energy and nutrient needs of 1-4 year olds. And Alberta Health and Wellness has produced an extensive guide of food portion sizes for children aged 1 through 18 years.