Book Review
            Handbook of Pediatric Nutrition, 2nd ed, edited by PQ Samour,           mentary medicine. In addition to a reference list, some of the
            KK Helm,and CE Lang,1999,698 pages,hardcover,$65. Aspen                 chapters provide useful resource lists and suggested reading lists.
            Publishers, Inc, Gaithersburg, MD.                                      The comprehensive appendix consists of a variety of growth
               The Handbook of Pediatric Nutrition is a well-written, practical     charts, nomograms, arm anthropometric tables, laboratory values,
            book intended for professions that provide nutritional care for         and nutrient requirements, including dietary reference intakes and              Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/72/4/1065/4729546 by guest on 06 January 2023
            infants, children, and adolescents. The book is comprehensive and       recommended dietary allowances, the food guide pyramid, and
            targeted mainly toward dietitians, but other medical professionals      conversion tables. The well-designed table of contents and index
            who are involved in the nutritional care of patients will find it very   will allow readers to readily find charts and topics of interest. An
            useful. “Handbook” is misleading because the book is a large,           increasingly important topic in the care of pediatric patients is
            detailed text rather than a handbook that can be carried around.        bone health and disease, which is not covered in this text. Addi-
            The book is divided into 2 sections: normal pediatric nutrition, and    tionally, the topics of food drug interactions and newer compo-
            growth and therapeutic pediatric nutrition. The first section deals      nents of formulas (eg, fructooligosaccharides and short-chain
            with basic aspects of pediatric nutrition, including normal growth,     fatty acids) could have been more comprehensively covered in the
            nutrition assessment, nutrition for premature infants through ado-      chapter on enteral nutrition.
            lescence, sports nutrition, community nutrition, vegetarianism,            In summary, the Handbook of Pediatric Nutrition is a well-
            food hypersensitivity, obesity, and eating disorders. The second        written book of practical issues in pediatric clinical nutrition
            section deals with disease- and organ-specific topics, including         specifically relating to patient care. Although the book is tar-
            pulmonary disease, gastrointestinal disorders, renal disease,           geted toward pediatric practitioners, especially dietitians,
            inborn errors of metabolism, developmental disabilities, AIDS,          other providers who take care of this population will find this
            oncology and bone marrow transplantation, burns, enteral nutri-         book a good resource. The editors are to be congratulated on
            tion, parenteral nutrition, diabetes, and cardiac disease.              this effort.
               The book provides practical information about a variety of
            common topics, including some unusual and novel topics such as                                                      Maria R Mascarenhas
            botanicals and nutritional counseling. Some chapters are extremely
            well written, such as those on food hypersensitivity, nutrition         Division of GI and Nutrition
            assessment, community nutrition, diabetes mellitus, and pul-            Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
            monary diseases. Other chapters contain various practical infor-        Main Building, Room 7414
            mation about breast-feeding, infant feeding, vegetarianism, sports      324 South 34th Street
            nutrition, and feeding disorders. Wherever appropriate, the             Philadelphia, PA 19104
            authors have included information about alternative and comple-         E-mail: mascarenhas@email.chop.edu
            Am J Clin Nutr 2000;72:1065. Printed in USA. © 2000 American Society for Clinical Nutrition                                           1065