Nutrition and oral health in the early years: Trends and influences in children aged 0-5 years

Abstract

Background Establishing healthy dietary intakes in childhood is important for growth, development and the prevention of overweight/obesity and many non-communicable diseases such as dental caries. There is a lack of longitudinal data on children’s dietary intake between birth and five years. A substantial proportion of Australian children are regularly cared for by their grandparents, yet there is little research exploring the influence of this environment on child health. The aim of this thesis is to describe what young children are eating across the first five years of life and examine the role that informal care, particularly grandparent care, plays in the promotion of nutrition and ora..