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Q: What foods do preschoolers need to grow strong, healthy bodies? How can Iget my picky eater to eat a better diet?

A: Of all the things you do for your children, the activity you do most often may be the most important: feeding them. You create interesting and nutritious meals and try to teach your children healthy eating habits to decrease their risks of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. But despite your best efforts, they often refuse to eat right. Mom, I encourage you to press on with this daunting mission!

Gone is the one-size-fits-all Food Guide Pyramid. Since 2005, the USDA offers a personalized guide to recommended foods at www.mypyramid.gov. If you enter anyone's age and activity level, up pops the recommended types and servings of food for that person (plus detailed information on healthy choices in each category).

Fish is highly recommended since 1-2 servings/week of fish decrease the risk of heart disease and help with brain development. But since there's mercury and PCB chemical contamination in certain fish, avoid: shark, swordfish, tilefish and king mackerel. OK for kids: light canned tuna, certain farmed and canned salmon, shrimp, trout, cod, catfish, flounder and sole.

Many of you worry your child is in nutritional trouble because despite your best efforts, you can count the number of foods he/she will eat on the fingers of one hand. Or you worry because your active young preschooler suddenly is lean and long and seemingly exists only on the air he/she breathes. This is usually a normal stage. The kiddo's calorie needs are not great because less overall body growth is happening. Appetite usually picks up as the next growth phase begins.

Here are tips to increase your picky eater's healthy food intake:

• Prevent filling up on drinks (even milk) before meals. Try to get healthy solid foods in first.
  
• Ask your child to help you shop and prepare the meal—he or she may be more likely to eat it.
  
• Avoid stressful meal times—set your rules before you set the table so dinner is not a battleground.
  
• Rule: Eat one bite of every food on dish (use a big plate so food looks smaller).
  
• Even if food is rejected, calmly offer new foods several times.
  
• Consider different ways to prepare food. For example, some kids like raw spinach, but won't eat cooked; many eat cooked corn, but my picky preschooler loved frozen corn and peas as finger foods. Experiment!
  
• Make food fun—cooked broccoli "trees" that say: "Please eat me." Try a blueberry pancake topped with a fruit face or frozen grapes for older preschoolers.
  

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