Announcer: You’re on Mornings with Nadia Mitsopoulos, ABC Radio, Perth and WA.

Dr Norman Swan: You shouldn’t fight over food with kids. And also you shouldn’t be overly restrictive. That’s where school canteens have a problem, is that if there’s a lot of rubbish in the canteen but you can’t have it, then that makes that food more attractive. Whereas if the canteen is stocked with healthy stuff, then the kids don’t necessarily notice that they’ve been restricted. And it’s the same goes at home. If you’ve got a lot of rubbish food at home and you have a fight with the kids knowing you can’t have it, then that becomes more attractive. And actually those kids become fatter and less healthy and they have less healthy eating habits. But if you don’t stock the larder with those foods, and you’re relaxed about when they go to a party and they’re having hamburgers, and you can be quite relaxed about that once every so often, then you don’t make a big deal. And the other thing that you mustn’t do with toddlers and babies is reward healthy eating with unhealthy food. A no-no of the top order. So we should…

Nadia Mitsopoulos: So we don’t say, eat everything, eat your little broccoli trees and everything else and then you can get ice cream for dessert. We don’t do that.

Dr Norman Swan: No, you don’t do that. If you want ice cream for dessert, that’s fine, but you don’t make a big deal of it.