"Cutting Thru the Nutritional Jungle" by Cathy Schmelter, R.D.

This is a fun and informative book. Author Cathy Schmelter obviously enjoys teaching. She writes in short chapters, and uses lots of sidebar tips and easy-to-understand examples and explanations. Each chapter has a quiz for the parent to complete, and at the end of the book, the parent tallies up their score and are told -- somewhat bluntly -- if they are doing a good job with their children's nutrition or not. There is a strong theme throughout this book that the parent reading the book needs to take responsibility for their children's health and dietary choices.

Schmelter begins with an interview with a mother of a typical obese child. She describes her son's consumption of junk foods, choice of large portions, and his lack of physical activity. Interestingly, the child lost forty pounds after joining a walking club at his school and making only minimal dietary changes.

The author points out that physical activity is severely lacking in many children's lives, partly due to advances in technological entertainment and to fears that strangers will harm children, thus children are kept indoors more often.

The book goes on to explain why kids make bad food choices. Busy family life and advertising aimed at children are two of the main reasons. Children also learn from their parents -- if you eat large portions of junk food in front of the TV, so will your kids. The author frequently reinforces the importance of being a good nutritional role model for your kids.

Schmelter also covers problems such as vending machines in schools, high fructose corn syrup, fast foods and processed foods. There is no shocking information here for one who is well-read in nutritional subjects, but it is very good information for that very large segment of parents who need help with healthy eating.

The next few chapters describe the basic concepts of macronutrients and micronutrients. Her descriptions are very easy to understand.

The rest of the book is devoted to helping your child eat healthy foods. Schmelter uses an interesting quiz to help determine if your child is a picky eater, a snacker or a sugar-craver, and she offers tips on dealing with these eating behaviors. Next are the suggestions for healthy meal preparation, what to look for on food labels, positive reinforcement when children do eat healthy, dealing with school foods, dietary supplements and several ideas for increasing your child's physical activity.