This month I wanted to spend a little bit of time going over what a healthy diet looks like for children.
First and foremost, the key to a healthy diet is variety! Offering your child a variety of options at every meal will give them an opportunity to meet all of their food and nutrition needs. It is important to remember that with young kids, their day to day intake will vary–some days they will eat more of one food group and others they will eat less of that food group. This is why we, as parents, need to focus on offering a variety of foods at each meal and snack.
In this article, I’m going to go over the 5 main food groups and then spend some time going over nutrition recommendations for the age categories for children under 18, including, infants, toddlers, children, and adolescents.
Let’s talk about food groups!
The major food groups include fruits, vegetables, grains, protein and dairy.
Any fruit or 100% fruit juice counts as a fruit; fruit can be fresh, frozen, canned, dried/dehydrated, and may be cut-up, whole, pureed or cooked. Similar to fruits, any vegetable or 100% vegetable juice counts as a vegetable, whether it is fresh, frozen, canned, or dried/dehydrated. Due to the diverse nutrient contents of vegetables, they are organized into 5 subgroups: dark green; red and orange; beans, peas and lentils; starchy; other vegetables.
Grains are divided into two subgroups: whole and refined grains. Whole grains contain the entire grain kernel, what is called the bran, germ and endosperm, while refined grains have been processed to remove the bran and germ. Most of the fiber and nutrients in grain are stored in the bran and the germ, making whole grains nutrient rich. Whole grains include whole-wheat flour, bulgur, oatmeal, brown rice. Refined grains include white flour, corn grits, white bread and white rice.
Foods from the protein food group include seafood, meat, poultry, eggs, beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, and soy products. Beans, peas and lentils are also part of the vegetable group. It is important to select a wide variety of protein foods to meet your nutrient needs. Meat and poultry should be lean or low fat, choose 93% lean ground meats, pork loin and skinless chicken. When thinking about seafood, choose for those that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and low in mercury, like salmon. Vegetarians can meet their protein needs through the intake of beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds and soy products.
Dairy includes calcium-rich dairy foods and their substitutes, including milk, yogurt, cheese, lactose-free milk and fortified soy milk and yogurt. The dairy group does not include foods made from milk that have little calcium, like cream cheese, sour cream, cream and butter.
When thinking about building our plates, the USDA MyPlate is a great place to start. The key takeaways should be 
• Make half of our plate fruits and vegetables
• Make half of your daily grains whole grains
• Vary your protein sources
• Serve low-fat dairy at meals (dairy includes milk, yogurt, cheese, lactose-free milk, fortified soy milk and yogurt)
Please note that dietary specifications for each life phase of your child (starting from infants, moving to toddlers, children and finally adolescents), will be added in the near future. Check back soon!
