Years ago, a teaching buddy told me that his son, who would soon be entering seventh grade, had been on an extremely limited diet for almost 10 years.

But the lad was not lactose intolerant. Nor did he did have food allergies, adverse reactions to artificial dyes or preservatives, or any type of inflammatory bowel disease.The restrictions of the boy's diet were solely self-imposed, merely a matter of what he did and did not like to eat. And he did not like to eat meat, fruit, or vegetables.He would tolerate potatoes, though - if they were cut into strips and French fried.So what else did he eat? Most types of cheese, macaroni and cheese, pierogies (but only Mrs. T's), and cream cheese on crackers. He drank orange drink and orange drink only.He had done so since he was three, my buddy explained, though he did begin eating cheese pizza about the time he started attending school. Then my buddy asked, "What would you do if he were your kid?"This really wasn't a diet-related question. It pertained to being a parent, something I'm not and something that - regretfully - I'll likely never be. I was clearly out of my element.So I asked a question instead of answering one: "What's his doctor think of all this?"After giving me an earthy, amusing, and oh-so unprintable answer (exactly the sort I've come to expect - and enjoy - from the guy), my buddy explained that the doc didn't think the boy's eating habits were hurting his health in any way. He advised the parents to do no more than what they had already been doing: allowing the phase to run its course by permitting the boy to eat whatever and whenever he wants.That phase lasted well into the boy's time in college, yet the doc's advice was dead-on.The odd eating never adversely affected the boy's health. He never carried even the slightest bit of extra weight and developed into much more than a run-of-the-mill high school athlete.Today, that boy is highly successful in the field of - irony of all ironies - food science. Furthermore, his eating habits have done a 180. He eats just about anything now, raw fish and pork belly included.But this article is really not about the evolution an adolescent's eating habits or a perspicacious pediatrician. It's about the parents and all parents, really.School starts Monday in my district, which means I normally devote a column about what parents can do to help their children maintain or improve their health at the start of the school year. This year, I struggled to create such a column.Initially, I thought it was because I didn't find any noteworthy new studies done with school-aged children. Or maybe the reason none of the studies struck me as noteworthy came from an unpleasant sense of "been there, done that."Whatever. Because those feelings, I eventually came to realize, weren't creating my writer's block.You were.You, the typical reader of this column who also happens to be a parent. You, along with a quality you possess and too often overlook when it comes to your child's health.Intuition.That quality is why the story about the Gwiazdowski's returned to me so vividly as I sat so vacantly at the computer. It's why parents often do not need to consult a physician or seek knowledge from some health-and-fitness column.Now was it smart that Ed and Gloria sought out their pediatrician's opinion on the way their son Brian was eating? Certainly. And there was no harm in asking me or anyone else about it, either.But what was even smarter was what they did before any of these consultations: gave merit to what they were feeling and acted accordingly.Sometimes, you see, all you need is intuition. Especially when it comes to the health of your child, for you are never more instinctual when you tap into the primordial. And you're never more primordial than when you're protecting a son or a daughter.While this column's topic wound up being far from typical, it's also far from trivial.If you regularly read this column, you know a fair amount health and fitness - definitely enough to know what helps or hurts your health. When you apply that knowledge to something you absolutely know better than anyone else - the ins and outs of your child - how could you really go wrong?You can't and you won't - as long as you listen to that great gastronomical guru also called your gut.