Dietary recommendations for complementary feeding- what’s needed today?

Sound food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG) for infants and toddlers are critical to population-based promotion of optimal nutrition and growth in early development. While FBDG for infants and toddlers have been widely adopted globally, few provide highly specific recommendations needed to address key nutrient requirements for growth and development. Analysis of global quantitative FBDG reveal that most tend to fall short on key nutrients, particularly for breastfed infants. FBDG employing dietary modeling approaches may have better translation for achieving nutrient targets than those developed with traditional menu planning approaches.