calories. Mean fiber intake for toddlers was 8 g/day, far below the AI of 19 g.
Finding: Calorie intake by infants and toddlers substantially exceeds their estimated requirements, although validation is needed on the reliability of food intake reporting by parents and caregivers, as well as on body weight estimates.
Food and beverage consumption patterns—reported as the percentage of infants and toddlers who consumed an item at least once in a day—from FITS have been described (Fox et al., 2004; Skinner et al., 2004b). Patterns that have been observed in older children and adults were observed in infants as young as 7 months. Up to one-third of infants and toddlers ages 7–24 months did not consume a discrete serving of a vegetable (18–33 percent) (Fox et al., 2004). In virtually all age groups, fewer than 10 percent consumed dark green leafy vegetables. Potato, starchy vegetable, and other vegetable consumption increased with age, with french fries or other fried potatoes being the third most consumed vegetable at 9–11 months (8.6 percent), second most consumed at 12–14 months (12.9 percent), and most consumed at ages 15–18 months (19.8 percent) and 19–24 months (25.5 percent) (Fox et al., 2004). Similar to vegetable consumption, up to one-third of infants and toddlers ages 7–24 months did not consume a discrete serving of a fruit (23–33 percent) and 46–62 percent consumed fruit juice (primarily apple juice). Most toddlers consumed cereals that were not presweetened, but 18–26 percent of toddlers, depending on age, consumed presweetened cereal (defined as 21.2 g of sugar/100 g). The percentage of infants and toddlers who consumed desserts, sweets, or sweetened beverages increased sharply after the age 6 months (from about 10 percent at age 6 months to 91 percent by ages 19–24 months). Among older toddlers ages 19–24 months, 60 percent consumed a baked dessert (e.g., cake, cookie, pie, or pastry) and 20 percent consumed candy.
Older toddlers primarily drank milk (93 percent), water (77 percent), 100 percent fruit juices (62 percent), and fruit drinks (43 percent), and to a lesser extent carbonated soft drinks (12 percent) and other beverages (11 percent) (Skinner et al., 2004b). Many infants and toddlers consumed at least one sweetened beverage each day, infants ages 7–8 months (7.5 percent), toddlers ages 12–14 months (28.2 percent), and older toddlers ages 19–24 months (44.3 percent) (Fox et al., 2004). Toddlers, ages 12–14 months and 15–18 months, who were in the upper quartile of to-