TODDLERS as young as 18 months are being weakened by anaemia in Bolton - because of poor diet.

Their health is suffering because they are not being fed the right foods.

Coupled with this, children are also suffering poor dental health because their basic diet is lacking in vitamins and iron.

Now, in an effort to tackle these two health issues efforts are being made to encourage youngsters to eat more healthily.

Health visitors working in some of the worst affected areas are already working with parents to encourage them to introduce healthy options into their children's diets.

Brenda Griffiths, a health visitor based at Cannon Street Health Centre, said: "At the end of the day parents want what's best for their children and if their child isn't happy eating certain foods then it appears to be far kinder to let them eat what they like which unfortunately isn't what's best for them.

"Very often it's a lot easier to let your child continue eating baby rice and to snack on sweets and crisps, but neither of these things are of high nutritional value and parents need to persevere for their child's sake to introduce more healthy foods," she added.

Throughout this week supermarkets across Bolton will be displaying the healthy options available to families and on Thursday in the Market Hall health visitors will be handing out healthy snacks to parents.

Anaemia, which is defined as being an inadequate number of red blood cells, can seriously hamper a child's physical and intellectual development.

Those most commonly affected are from disadvantaged backgrounds and the ethnic communities.

Brenda added: "Very often healthy foods are a lot cheaper than those which aren't nutritional. If we can encourage parents, as it is they who do the shopping, to introduce fruit and other such things into the diet, then we will be helping them to help their child."

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