Can I ask you all to do a Gillian McKeith on my daughter (a TMI thread)

[Iwasthefourthwiseman]

My daughter is 3.5. She is a pretty fussy eater, doesn't eat many veg, but I try and get her to eat fruit and I hid veg in pasta sauce and where ever else I can. She has a fairly ok diet other than that, plenty of dairy, protein and carbs.

I've noticed that her poos tend to be pretty light, often yellow in colour. Is this a sign of anything? Does it suggest something is lacking in her diet or is it normal for this age?

Iwasthefourth, wouldn't you rather we did something more effective than a Gillian McKeith, something involving less fainting?

The colour of poos tells you nothing unless they are black. Black poos can sometimes be a sign of internal bleeding. So forget everything you learned form the unfortunate woman with the mail order degree who seems never to have recovered from the house falling on her sister

A tip: children will often eat vegetables in a pudding that they would shun in a savoury context. Courgette cake, carrot pudding, pumpkin pie or squash pancakes.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I seem to have the only 3 year who doesn't like any sort of cake, else I would be stuffing her full of courgette muffins!

As a general rule (disregarding actual bowel related illnesses) the quicker the transit the lighter the poo. Its because the food rushes through the bowel and not a lot of bile can be produced in time to break it down - like catching a speeding train. Constipated people often have quite dark brown poo.