Nutrition trends during 150 years of children's cookbooks.

This paper identifies trends in children's cookbooks for nutrition messages, cultural content, and food themes according to food guidance of the time. Except for those developed in government-sponsored nutrition programs since the 1970s, children's cookbooks seemingly have a preponderance of high-calorie dessert and party/fun recipes and limited vegetable recipes. In the past 150 years, the science of nutrition has grown from a focus on nitrogen to one on multiple nutrients and their interrelationships. Foods in the market have diversified in number and form, and a children's nutrition specialty has been introduced and expanded in many dimensions-including in the publishing of children's books. Because children's early food choices influence both their growth and health, factors impacting food choices need to receive more attention.