According to study's co-author, Flinders University Associate Professor Jane Scott providing a balanced, healthy diet to the infant was fast becoming a lost skill. She said, I guess I was disturbed but not necessarily surprised because traditionally infants are weaned onto the family's diet by  about 12 months of age and I think this is reflective of what the families diet isIt's not really saying or implying that all those children are eating these foods on a regular basis but even so in those early months it's not the foods that we recommend for infants to be eating, there's no value in them. She explained that the first year of life lays foundation of eating habits for life. It's a window of opportunity for helping to establish good eating habits in early life, and once established these habits are actually very hard to breakThis is the time when children are most receptive to new tastes, she said. There is a natural predisposition to like salty and sweet foods in babies she said and that is reason why fruits and vegetables should be introduced and included in diet. We do have dietary guidelines for older children and adolescents but this age group does seem to be falling between the gaps, she said.

The study also showed that mothers with three or more children were more likely to give their infants ice-cream and hot chips. Mothers who were born in countries other than Australia, the UK and Ireland were less likely to give them hot chips. Varied socio-economic backgrounds were seen in this study with similar results.

A 2007 survey by the CSIRO found that 20 per cent of Australian toddlers aged between two and three years were overweight or obese, and food preferences of children as young as two closely predicted the child's eating habits at the age of eight. Louise Baur, professor of paediatrics at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, said she was saddened, but not surprised. Brisbane dietitian Melanie Kelly said she was horrified to hear of the findings.