The centre's Dr Deanna Pagnini says parents spend too much time trying to make their young children eat more, when instead, they should be allowed to self-regulate.
"You get rewarded as a parent of a young child if your child's a good eater and that's the language a lot of people use," she said.
"'Oh doesn't he eat well, you're so lucky he eats everything, she eats everything'. But what they don't realise is that weight that is put on during early childhood, then a lot of it does stay on." © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
