As your child grows, you can set them up for a better future by paying attention to what they eat. By having your kids eat healthy foods and develop good eating habits at a young age, you’ll be helping their growth and making it more likely they’ll eat a healthy diet when they become adults.
Review our top five family dietitian tips for helping kids eat healthy:
1. Support Your Child’s Gut Health With Probiotics
Amongst adults, probiotic supplements, drinks, and foods have become quite popular in recent years, and for good reason. Like with adults, probiotics can improve your child’s gut motility (the movement of food through their gastrointestinal tract) and digestion. Probiotics can also help reduce the chance of constipation and may even assist with mood, brain development, and cognition.
Though there aren’t any standardized recommended amounts of probiotics children should take, most supplements usually have between 5 billion and 15 billion CFU (i.e., the number of live cells in the serving), which should generally be safe for most kids. However, an infant under six months old shouldn’t have more than 1 – 2 billion CFU, and children between the ages of 6 months to 3 years old should only have 2 to 6 billion CFU. After a child is 3 years older or older, anything between 4 to 25 billion CFU should be safe.
Some probiotic foods for kids include yogurts (not frozen yogurt), Kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut. You can also feed your child miso, tempeh, kombucha, cottage cheese, aged cheese, sour cream, and buttermilk. If your children are pickier eaters, you can have them take probiotic supplements to ensure they’re regularly adding probiotics to their gut. I prefer a chewable or powder to mix into liquids over a gummy due to the added sugar and for dental health.
2. Make Sure Your Child Eats Enough Fiber
If your child can never seem to feel full or struggles with constipation, you’ll want to check that they’re getting enough fiber. Fiber helps children feel full, is a good source of vitamins and nutrients, and promotes healthy bowel function. Generally, children should eat the following amount of fiber:
- 1 – 3 Years Old: 19 grams of fiber a day
- 4 – 8 Years Old: 25 grams of fiber a day
- 9 to 13 Years Old (Girls): 26 grams of fiber a day
- 9 to 13 Years Old (Boys): 31 grams of fiber a day
- 14 to 19 Years (Girls): 29 grams of fiber a day
- 14 to 19 Years (Boys): 38 grams of fiber a day
High-fiber foods for kids include vegetables, beans, peas, nuts, fruit, and whole-grain cereals and breads. If you’re wondering how to add high-fiber foods for kids to a picky child’s diet, you can try adding zucchini noodles to regular pasta, blending up fruit into a smoothie, pureeing vegetables into pasta sauces, and putting beans in soups and salads.
3. Limit Sugar
While sugary snacks, drinks, and desserts can be a great treat occasionally, they shouldn’t be a primary part of your child’s diet. Sugar tastes good, but it can lead to energy crashes, and eating high amounts of sugar while young has been linked to obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. Due to these negative health effects, the American Heart Association recommends that children between the ages of 2 and 18 shouldn’t consume more than six teaspoons of added sugar a day (I would advise way less than this!). Children under two shouldn’t have any added sugar at all.
Unfortunately, many foods have added sugar in them, such as cereals and snack bars, some dried fruits, canned sauces, breads, soups, condiments, fast food, and frozen meals. As you shop for your child, look for alternative products with no added sugar if you find that the normal foods you buy have added sugar. You can also change recipes to use less sugar, and you’ll want to cut out sodas since their sugar content is usually well above the AHA’s recommendations.
Keep in mind that you don’t want to ban sugar entirely. Doing so can cause children to overindulge when they do have the chance to eat sweets, so still allowing your child to eat sweets every once in a while can help your children develop a healthy relationship with food. Adding more fruit to your child’s diet can also be a good replacement for sugary treats.
4. Have Your Children Eat High-Protein Foods (But Don’t Overdo It)
Since protein provides essential nutrients that serve as the building blocks for bodies, your child needs protein as they grow. Protein also assists with the recovery and repair of blood, nails, hair, organs, skin, and muscle tissues. Making sure your child has enough protein can also prevent the negative effects of a protein deficiency, such as joint and bone pain, fatigue, decreased immune response, slower wound healing, difficulty concentrating, and delayed growth.
The National Academy of Sciences states that children should have the following amount of protein in their diet:
- 0 to 6 months old: 9.1 grams of protein a day
- 6 to 12 months old: 11.0 grams of protein a day
- 1 to 3 years old: 13 grams of protein a day
- 4 to 8 years old: 19 grams of protein a day
- 9 – 13 years old: 34 grams of protein a day
- 14 – 18 years old (girls): 46+ grams of protein a day
- 14 – 18 years old (boys): 52+ grams of protein a day
As a caveat, you’ll want to avoid giving your child too much protein since it can increase the risk of dehydration and stress their kidneys and liver. If your child is already getting enough protein to meet the amount listed above great, and stick with whole foods forms, instead of in the form of protein supplements. Also, it can be healthier to stick to lean meats, seafood, and plant-based proteins as the primary sources of protein instead of more processed or high-fat foods like chicken nuggets, bacon, or hot dogs.
5. Keep in Mind Neurodivergent Children May Have Different Needs
If your child is neurodivergent, you may need to pay more attention to what foods you give them. For example, foods to avoid with an ADHD child include those high in salt, sweetened foods, and fried foods, as they could negatively affect the child’s attention, behavior, and learning. In contrast, having your child eat a balanced diet with higher amounts of vegetables and dairy products can do the opposite.
Since neurodivergence can take many forms, working with a registered dietitian who has experience helping neurodivergent children can be useful. For example, they can provide tips for helping neurodivergent children eat and create meal plans that take your child’s nutritional needs and taste or textural preferences into account. Talking with your child’s pediatrician about diet and their unique needs can also be useful when helping your child create healthy eating habits.
Schedule a Family Dietitian Appointment at Chain Effect
If you’re looking for a family dietitian in North Carolina, turn to Chain Effect. Whether you want to understand why your child’s energy crashes during the day, your ADHD child sneaks food at night, or you need a meal plan for your whole family, our team is ready to assist you.
Our registered dietitians regularly help families with young children develop healthier relationships with food and eat a healthier diet. We also make receiving nutrition counseling services easier for parents and their children by providing virtual telehealth appointments.
Learn more about our family dietitian services today.
