Start your children early with the right food

Of course they should be breast fed, but after they are off the breast milk, offering the correct foods will be important. After five years old you have lost your opportunity for major changes.

Many parents don't realize that you can withhold food for a short time and as long as you or anyone else does not offer them other foods, their appetite for the food will dramatically improve in 24-48 hours. Always implement the changes in love and NEVER force your child to eat anything. The most important change will be to stop all fluids but water.

This is the single greatest problem that kids have. Milk, juice, and soda are their biggest enemies. Sugar, which is related to the juice and soda, is next on the list.

If you can severely restrict sugar and limit nearly all fluids to pure water you have given an enormous health benefit for your child.

Teenagers in the US now drink twice as much soda as milk, a reverse of figures noted 20 years ago, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in Washington, DC.

According to the new report -- called "Liquid Candy" -- the average soda consumption among teenage males between ages 13 and 18 who drink soda is three or more cans a day, and 10% drink seven or more cans a day. Of 13- to 18-year-old girls who drink the beverages, the average intake is more than two cans a day, and 10% of those teenagers drink more than five cans a day.

CSPI officials are calling for reforms to lower soda consumption, "including more water fountains, soda-free schools, and health-education campaigns funded by state taxes on soda, according to a statement.