I have a 2 year old. I've never had a 2 year old before. It's safe to say I knew very little about having a 2 year old 2 years ago. Fortunately, help is available.
I have a good number of books that would likely give me some useful guidelines on raising a child if I ever opened them. It's not that I haven't opened them to peruse. I have. I just don't look in those books anymore because I've grown accustomed to the search engine format of learning, and have little patience for anecdotes and overly general observations. Again, that's probably not what's in those books (?), it's just my perception of what's in them.
At any rate, I've dreamed up a process likely similar to the process used by others of my "generation" or "learning style" to find information on a given subject. This process allows for casual or intense scrutiny of almost any subject of interest, and is available to anyone with internet access.
Since I believe that there must be a lot of people like me, who have received structural English writing lessons in their "some college" experience, I imagine there are lots of capable research writers out there using a process similar to my own. According to the latest U.S. Census statistics, there are 2.2-2.3 Million people in the State of Florida from 25-34 years of age, and it's likely that a good percentage of them, say 500,000 know the particulars of reading about a subject, then writing about it.
For my 2 year old, I wanted to get a rough idea as to whether or not she was eating enough of what she needs to be healthy. In order to find out I did a Google Search for: "average caloric intake 2 years" and read thru the first 10 articles for tips and suggestions.
Interestingly, like a bad research writer in school, I don't want to speak with the words of the writers of the articles. I just want to suggest that those articles informed my opinion about my actions for the week ahead, and perspective on the memories of my child's eating habits up to now. The experience was a bit tedious compared with life before I had a 2 year old, but it was nothing that felt much like work.
Perhaps due to the season, but I called the process "On the first page of Google..." when having discussions with friends and family. They've called it "crowd-sourcing" in some cases. Either way, I'm following the advice and guidelines with my own child, so there must be a value in doing so (which we shall see through the years).
I wrote down what I fed my kid for a week, and tried to follow the pattern we've already got set in place as closely as possible. As it turns out, she's already been eating very well, though areas of improvement were indentified.
My child ate about 1 pound 9 ounces of food per day this week (+/-20%), largely broken down along the lines of suggestion by the sites I read last week: 3.3oz grain (50% whole), 14oz dairy (milk/cheese/yogurt), 1/2oz of vegetables, 17oz of fruit, and 4oz of meats/beans.
From one height/calorie suggestion I found ~1,400 calories/day was one suggestion for food volume for my child, and that's about the average of the week. Since my family is a pretty tall one, and so is that of my child's mother, mine may take in more calories than might be required for some... and less than others. That's the whole point, though. This exercise is about observation. Not only did I want to know what I should be feeding my 2 year old, I wanted to know how I was doing already.
Gauging things like calories/day or ounces in a snack is a tough thing for a lot of people. Fortunately, the knowledge available on the first page of google can give you a fair idea of what to look for. I thought I might share that habit with the world online and a large number of people in Florida. Hopefully, together we can establish a foundation of knowledge that ensures the safe health and growth of all our children, as well as ourselves.
Effective means of buying/attaining this food? That's a different "first page of google..."
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