An Appetite for Life: How to Feed Your Child from the Start

All the latest research on how to feed your child well—especially in their crucial first two years

One of the greatest challenges a parent faces is navigating their child’s appetite. From picky eaters to overeaters, babies and toddlers can be difficult to feed. Yet a parent’s job is to ensure that their child is receiving the nutrition they need. New research suggests that a child’s eating habits are shaped as early as pregnancy.

In An Appetite for Life, researchers Clare Llewellyn, PhD, and Hayley Syrad, PhD, separate fact from fad and share the latest reliable science to help you decide what’s best for you and your child.

• What to eat during pregnancy to ensure good maternal and infant health.
• Milk-feeding how-tos, with advice on both breastfeeding and formula.
• Baby’s essential first foods, including easy-to-follow guidance on weaning, introducing solid foods, and important nutrients.
• Balanced diets for toddlers, with feeding strategies for different eating styles.

“Parents and caregivers will not only better understand their child’s appetite but will also be armed with the most recent scientific insights to help their child develop healthy eating habits.”—Suburban Parent

Clare Llewellyn, PhD, is a chartered psychologist and associate professor of obesity at University College London, where she leads the Obesity Research Group and the Gemini twin study. In 2011 she completed her PhD at UCL on the nature and nurture of eating behavior and weight in early life and she has a long-standing fascination with the topic, which probably stems from having been a notoriously fussy eater as a child. A decade ago she helped establish Gemini, the largest twin study ever set up to explore the nature and nurture of eating behavior from the beginning of life. She has published nearly 100 scientific papers, articles and book chapters on this topic and has given over sixty invited talks worldwide at international organizations, such as the American Dietetic Association, the UK Royal Society of Medicine and the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition. She lives in London with her partner, Andy.

Hayley Syrad, PhD, is a chartered psychologist. She gained a first-class psychology bachelor’s degree at the University of Southampton in 2007 and a PhD in behavioral nutrition at the Health Behaviour Research Centre, University College London, in 2016. Her research has focused on the factors influencing what and how young children eat. She has used real-world dietary data from the largest twin study in the UK (Gemini) to explore children’s eating behaviors and has specifically examined the role of appetite and parental feeding practices. She uncovered the finding that children who are more food responsive tend to eat more often, and children with lower sensitivity to satiety tend to eat larger portions. Her research also showed that the portion size served to children can influence how much they consume (larger servings = more consumed), and she was the first researcher to provide evidence of this relationship. Hayley has published a number of articles on infant and toddler feeding.