Victorian researchers tracked the dietary habits of children aged from nine-months to five-years and compared what they found to Australian dietary guidelines.

Just 10 per cent of children under two-years-of-age were meeting the guidelines and not eating any junk food.

By the time they turned three-and-a-half, a quarter of children’s energy intake was fueled by foods deemed too high in saturated fat or sugar to belong in the five healthy food groups.

While 90 per cent of children met guidelines for fruits and vegetables at nine-months-of-age, those eating enough veggies dropped “substantially” to less than 10 per cent by 18-months-of-age.

And those numbers stayed low after that, according to Dr Alison Spence, lead author and Deakin University expert.

Fruit intake was better, with most children meeting the guidelines at nine months. However, this reduced to only about one third at five-years-of-age.

The research results did not surprise Healthy Australia CEO Ruby O’Rourke. Her organisation has helped develop FeedAustralia, a healthy food program being rolled out to local early education and childcare providers.

She said less than five per cent of child care services across the country were compliant with Australian dietary guidelines.

That, combined with unhealthy family meals and food industry advertising campaigns, was creating a generation of convenience buyers.

“Essentially we have kids growing up and expecting just to buy things, not having to work out how to get things, or make or do things,” she said.

“The immediacy of food is a big problem. Kids aren’t learning how to cook, or what vegetables they can use.”

Critically, young children were not learning anything about their bodies.

“When you don’t know the infrastructure of your body you cannot appreciate what food does for you,” Ms O’Rourke said.

“In my generation that did not matter as much because we were using our bodies more. We’d go outside more to play.”

Ms O’Rourke called for the core education children received at childcare centres and in the home to shift with the times.

She was pleased the City of Greater Bendigo had embraced the FeedAustralia program.

“So if they aren’t getting it (a healthy diet) at home, we can be certain they are getting it in care,” Ms O’Rourke said.