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Helping your child eat well and move more: healthy habits, what to eat and drink, snacks, staying active, screen time, and weight
For parents, grandparents and anyone who cares for a child. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) says: how to build healthy habits together and be a role model, words of praise that work, sleep, other caregivers, school and ads, what to eat and drink more and less of, healthy snacks and the foods a small child could choke on, meals together, how much to move at each age, limits on screen time, and how to help a child with their weight by loving them at any weight. It builds the words to say at the next checkup, and prints a family card. Nothing is saved.
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- On this site: Eating well and moving more · Changing your habits · Eating well in pregnancy.
- Food and care: When you need food · When you need child care · Lactose intolerance.
- A child’s health: Fatty liver disease in children · Prediabetes · When eating has become a fight.
- Getting ready: Get ready for your appointment · When you need a doctor and can’t pay. In a crisis: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
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Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Food portions: portions and servings, how much is enough for you, reading the label, at home, eating out, and on a tight budget: food portions: the difference between a portion and a serving, servings per container, how much is enough for you, reading the Nutrition Facts label, and tips at home, eating out and when money is tight.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse or dietitian has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 19, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Helping Your Child: Tips for Parents & Other Caregivers (last reviewed October 2019) and its Spanish page Cómo ayudar a los niños: recomendaciones para los padres y otros cuidadores, which say the same. The numbers (about 3 hours of activity a day at ages 3 through 5; at least 1 hour a day at 6 through 17; no more than 1 hour of screen time at ages 2 to 5; seafood 1 to 2 times a week, starting with 1-ounce portions at age 2; label servings based on a 2,000-calorie adult diet) are NIDDK’s, and we add none. Ours: 911 for a child who is choking and can’t breathe, cough or cry, or in danger, and 988 (NIDDK names neither on this page); our eating disorders page for a child who skips meals, hides food or hates their body; that not having enough food is not about your choices; never to make a child skip meals or go without food to lose weight; to ask before a young child’s first nuts or seeds; that a child with a health condition or a disability may need a different plan; that NIDDK’s numbers are a goal, not a test; the questions to ask; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: NIDDK’s link to a body mass index calculator (whether a child is in a healthy range is for the child’s health care professional to say, and we link NIDDK’s page), its references, and its links to other sites, which we name. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.