How much fruit should children eat?

How much fruit should children eat?

Sep 3, 2025 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

We are constantly hearing about the dangers of sugar to both health and brain function and that we should limit the amount our children eat.  Fruit contains high amounts of sugar, so does this mean children should avoid too much fruit?

Nick Fuller, writing for ‘The Conversation’, discusses this.

‘Good sugar’

Sugar itself isn’t inherently harmful, but the type of sugar children eat can be.

Whole fruits contain naturally occurring sugars that are healthy and provide kids with energy. Whole fruits are packed with vitamins and minerals needed for good health. This includes vitamins A, C, E, magnesium, zinc and folic acid. All fruits are suitable—bananas, berries, naartjies, apples and mangoes, to name just a few.

The insoluble fibre in fruit skins also helps children stay regular, and the soluble fibre in fruit flesh helps keep their cholesterol in a healthy range, absorbing “bad” cholesterol to reduce their long-term risk of stroke and heart disease.

So eating fruit is very beneficial for children.

‘Bad sugar’

Added sugars—which add calories but no nutritional value to kids’ diets—are the “bad” sugars and the ones to avoid. They’re found in processed and ultra-processed foods kids crave, such as sweets, cakes, cookies and soft drinks.

Added sugars are often added to seemingly healthy packaged foods, such as muesli bars. They’re also hidden under 60-plus different names in ingredient lists, making them hard to spot.

Weight gain

A diet high in added sugars—found in many processed, ultra-processed foods (for example, sweet and savoury packaged snacks)—can mean children consume excess calories and gain unnecessary weight over the years, which may increase their chance of developing type 2 diabetes as they get older.

On the other hand, research shows that kids who eat more fruit have less abdominal fat.

Research also shows fruit can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, with one study finding kids who ate 1.5 servings of fruit daily had a 36% lower risk of developing the disease.

Nutritional deficiencies

A diet high in added sugars can also result in nutritional deficiencies.

Many processed foods offer low-to-no nutrition, which is why dietary guidelines recommend limiting them.

Children filling up on these foods are less likely to eat vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean meats, producing a diet lacking in fibre and other key nutrients needed for growth and development.

Conclusion: Give kids fruit in abundance

There’s no need to limit how much whole fruit kids eat—it’s nutritious, filling and can protect their health. It’s also going to fill them up and reduce their desire to ask for the processed, packet food that is low in nutrition, and calorie-rich.

But do avoid juiced and dried fruits because juicing leaves the goodness (the fibre) behind in the juicer, and drying strips fruits of their water content, making them easy to overconsume.  Remember that drinking fruit juice may result in consuming more sugar that a cooldrink.  They are bad news.  Giving your child water to drink at school is a far healthier choice.

We do need to reduce kids’ sugar consumption. But this needs to be achieved by reducing their intake of processed and packet foods that contain added sugars, rather than fruit.

 

Provided by The Conversation

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Help your child overcome these five fussy eating problems

Help your child overcome these five fussy eating problems

Nov 13, 2024 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

In the distant past, humans may have developed a reason for being fussy about foods.  They had to avoid strange and bitter tastes to prevent themselves being poisoned. They also knew to seek out types of high-energy, palatable foods and store these for periods of food scarcity.  In the present, it is certainly very common for children from the age of about 3 years to develop aversions to certain foods and become fixated on eating only a few.

Nick Fuller writes that the foods we eat from an early age forms lifelong food preferences so that, and the fact that we need a variety of food for good health, means that we need to encourage our children to eat a balanced diet.  Writing for The Conversation, he outlines some of the most frequent foods avoided by young children and offers ideas of overcoming reluctance to eat them.

  1. Only eating beige or white foods

When it comes to fussy eating, beige and white foods typically reign supreme. This is because these foods are:

  • familiar—they’re the colour of breastmilk and the foods typically used when we introduce solids, such as infant cereal
  • bland or mild-flavored—they don’t overwhelm toddlers who have 30,000-plus tastebuds(versus the 10,000-plus adults have)
  • easy—they’re often soft and easy to chew, making them appealing to toddlers developing chewing skills
  • non-threatening—they’re the opposite of what our hunter-gatherer ancestors have programmed us to avoid: brightly coloured—and toxic—foods found in the wild.

While it can be tempting to give in and serve chicken nuggets at every meal, a diet consisting of only beige and white foods is likely to be highly processed and low in dietary fibre. This can result in constipation and the depletion of healthy gut bacteria.

A beige/white diet can also lack the vitamins and minerals needed for healthy development and growth, including vitamins B and C, and iron.

To add healthier food options, and more colour, to your toddler’s diet:

  • mix things up. Combine less healthy beige and white foods with healthier ones, like blending cannellini beans and cauliflower into mashed potatoes
  • make healthy swaps. Gradually replace the favoured white bread, pasta and rice with wholegrain versions; for example, mix brown rice into a serving of white
  • use familiarity to your advantage. Introduce colourful food options alongside the familiar beige and white ones, such as offering fruit to dip in yogurt, or a healthy red or green sauce with pasta.
  1. Refusing anything but milk

It’s not surprising that toddlers love milk. It has been the constant in their life since birth. And it’s associated with more than just satisfying hunger—it’s there when they’re tired and going to sleep, when they’re upset and need comfort, and when they’re enjoying closeness with mum or dad.

It also contains lactose, a sugar found naturally in milk, so it tastes sweet and appeals to our hunter-gatherer instinct to seek foods high in natural sugar to avoid starvation.

While dairy provides essential calcium for toddlers, it needs to be part of a balanced diet. The Australian Dietary Guidelines suggest toddlers have 1–1½ servings of milk (1 cup = 1 serve), yogurt (200g = 1 serve) and cheese (2 slices = 1 serve) (or alternatives) daily.

If your toddler is consuming too much milk, they’re at risk of iron deficiency, as milk is a poor source of iron and interferes with our body’s ability to absorb it.

To move your toddler away from milk, try:

  • fact-finding. When your toddler asks for milk, ask questions to understand what they really want. Are they hungry, thirsty or wanting comfort? Offer that instead
  • filling up on solids first. Tempt your toddler with healthy and interesting-looking foods, and only offer milk after they’ve eaten something solid
  • smaller serves. Switch to serving milk in a smaller-sized cup.
  1. Avoiding textured foods

Refusing to eat lumpy, chewy or strangely textured foods is common as toddlers’ sensory and oral motor skills develop.

It’s also common for parents to continue pureeing these foods as a result of the upsetting gagging that often accompanies trying different textured food.

To support your toddler’s transition to textured foods and ensure they’re developing the muscles needed to eat safely:

  • turn the texture up slowly. Start with food your toddler enjoys, such as pureed carrot, and gradually blend it for less time to retain some lumps
  • stay calm if your toddler gags. Let them know it’s OK, and give them time to work it through on their own. After they have coughed it out, encourage them to try another spoonful, or try again next time.
  1. Refusing vegetables

The texture, brightness and bitter taste of some veggies can be off-putting for some children.

But vegetables are a good source of the vitamins, minerals and fibre toddlers need.

To overcome your toddler’s aversion to veggies, get creative. The appearance of food affects our perception of its taste, so boost veggies’ appeal by arranging them into fun plate art.

Extend this creativity to introduce vegetables in new ways, for example, grating carrots or kale into muffins and using a spiraliser to make zucchini noodles.

Focus on offering sweeter tasting vegetables, such as peas, carrot and sweet potato, and roasting them to bring out their natural sweetness. Children are more likely to go for sweeter-tasting veggies than bitter ones like broccoli.

  1. Refusing to eat meat

Meat contains protein and iron, but many toddlers refuse to eat it because of its tough, chewy texture and strong taste.

If you want your toddler to get their daily serving of protein (for example, 80g cooked chicken or 65g cooked beef from lean meat) but you’re finding it challenging:

  • start small. Offer leaner, lighter-tasting meats in small portions that are easy to chew, such as minced chicken or slow-cooked meat
  • involve your toddler in meal preparation. Ask them to choose the meat for dinner and get their help to prepare it.

There are also alternatives you can offer as you work on overcoming their meat aversion. Eggs, tofu, beans, lentils and fish are also high in protein.

Issues with chewing and swallowing and food aversion can be symptoms of underlying medical conditions, so consult your GP or childc and family health nurse if your child’s fussy eating behavior persists beyond the toddler and pre-school years.

Provided by The Conversation

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Can food be the cause of children’s problems?

Can food be the cause of children’s problems?

May 15, 2024 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

We’ve known for a long time that food can cause us problems.  The well-known adage ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’ was reportedly said by Herodotus in 460 BC.  Later, Hippocrates identified that stomach and skin complaints could be caused by drinking milk. 

Yet the link between children’s problems and the food  they eat remains ignored by many.  Inattention is seen to be the result of emotional stressors or a symptom of a mental disorder (ADHD).  This is in spite of much evidence that attention and other typical challenges (can’t complete tasks; loses focus; is aggressive; can’t follow instructions  etc.) may well be linked to brain function that is disrupted by food substances. 

There’s a difference between a food allergy and an intolerance.  A food allergy means any immediate reaction to anything inhaled or eaten or coming into direct contact with the skin.  The reaction (swollen lips and tongue, asthma attack, rash) is immediate and so can usually be traced back to a particular cause.  Peanut and shellfish allergies are perhaps the best known.

Food intolerance is the name for reactions that show up to 72 hours after exposure, making the trigger food or substance much more difficult to identify. While the reactions may not be life-threatening, as in the case of an allergy, they can certainly impact badly on the general health and functioning of the child.  Symptoms of food intolerances can be divided into two broad categories: physical (especially digestive) and mental/emotional/behavioural.

It is much easier to understand the link between what a child eats and what happens in his digestive system than to see the relationship between his food and his feelings, behaviours and learning. Nevertheless, we have known for decades that reactions to foods can cause, amongst others, hyperactivity, nervousness, learning problems, depression, hostility, aggression, periods of confusion, irritability, mood swings and clumsiness.    Partly clouding the issue is that the distinction between allergy and intolerance is still not recognized.  This means the absence of an immediate negative reaction to a food is seldom thought of as a possible cause of emotional/emotional/behavioural issues.

Dr William Philpott, a psychiatrist and an author of an interesting book titled Brain allergies, reported that intolerant reactions to foods and pollutants often trigger violent behaviour. This rings true to ILT practitioners, who have had experience of children as young as 3-years-old being expelled from their nursery schools for violent outbursts.  On careful analysis, the causes were food additives – such as colourants, preservatives and flavouring. 

Another case[1] involved a 5-year old boy with poor speech development.  The child showed an abnormal EEG (brain scan showing abnormal brainwave patterns) and a temper that was out of control.  The boy was found to be intolerant to chocolate, milk and cola, which were then eliminated from his diet for over seven months.  The EEG was repeated and found to be normal, and his behaviour was much improved.  When the culprit foods were then reintroduced, his EEG was once again abnormal and his behaviour worsened.

Common food intolerances

Many foods may be the triggers to adverse reactions but to help alert you to the most likely culprits in childhood, here are the top five usual suspects: 

  1. Cow’s milk products
  2. Food additives and colourings
  3. Gluten grains (wheat, oats, rye, barley)
  4. Sugar
  5. Yeast 

In addition, sometimes the clue to a culprit food may be the food that a child craves and insists on eating all the time.  Eating too much of the same food too often can lead to a food intolerance which then becomes a craving for that food.  Yet another reason to try and ensure that your family has a varied diet.

It is difficult to test reliably for a possible food intolerance and some tests are also expensive.  One method that can be done without expense at home is an elimination diet. 

Elimination diet

As the name suggests, this approach means that you withhold the suspected food to see if symptoms improve. This means being very strict and ensuring that the suspected food is totally absent from the diet.  For example, you may be withholding milk but the child is eating other foods containing milk, for example, baked products, cheese and so on. 

If the symptoms do seem to abate, after a while you add the food back to see if symptoms reappear.  Don’t be in too much of a hurry.  If food tolerance is the cause of the symptoms, it might take up to several weeks to see improvements – especially if the symptom is related to a health condition.  On the other hand, children sometimes show remarkably quick improvement.  An example of this is a young girl who showed mood problems, low energy levels, ‘foggy head’, sore muscles and some digestive problems.  We suspected wheat as her diet was particularly high in this, being part of nearly every meal.  After cutting out all wheat and wheat-containing products (read the labels!), she felt very much better after only a month. In the first few days, she had felt worse, which is a well-known sign of withdrawal from a biochemical addiction. This was a confirmation that the approach was correct and luckily passed after only a short while 

If there are multiple food intolerances, identifying them may be a long and difficult process. Symptoms may not improve even if one suspected food is avoided because other culprit foods may be contributing to the symptoms.  In this case, it would be better to consider a test, for which you should consult a medical doctor with specific knowledge of allergies and intolerances.

Is there a cure for food intolerances?

There is no simple remedy for a condition that is a manifestation of the body’s inability to adapt to certain things, not least eating too much of the same foods too often.  The only real way to deal with a food intolerance is to avoid the food so as to reduce or eliminate the symptoms.

 

Image supplied by Freepik.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Haynes, A J & Savill, A. 2005. The food intolerance bible. HarperThorsons: Berwick upon Tweed

Cultivating a healthy gut garden

Cultivating a healthy gut garden

Nov 15, 2023 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

 

Integrated Learning Therapy practitioners place great value on a healthy digestive system.  Our knowledge about how important nutrition is for brain health naturally evolved into a concern for the state of our clients’ guts. More specifically, for the contents of their guts.  There is little doubt that having a gut stocked with healthy bacteria and other beneficial organisms (collectively called the microbiome) puts a child at an advantage when it comes to school success. 

The question is: if you suspect that gut problems are present in your child, how can you try to improve matters? How can you help him or her grow a healthy gut garden?  This article is summarized from the book ‘Follow your gut’ by Rob Knight (A TED Book published by Simon and Schuster). 

As with any garden, it is necessary to nurture the existing plants by feeding them or preparing the ground for new plants by digging in nutrients.  This is where prebiotics come in.  In simple language, prebiotics are largely soluble fibres that occur naturally in some fruits and vegetables.  They provide nutrition for the cells that line our intestines and also produce some of the benefits of natural high-fibre diets. One of the major benefits is that they provide food for health-promoting gut bacteria.   It is logical then to assume that children who struggle to eat enough fruits and vegetables might lack these fibres and so also lack a healthy microbiome.

There are as yet no clear guidelines as to what you should do to improve matters if your child resists fibrous vegetables but at the very least, it can do no harm to provide a prebiotic supplement.

Once you’ve dug in prebiotic compost, you need to put healthy plants into your garden.  These are the probiotics that play such an important role our physical and mental health.

They are mainly bacteria that are found naturally occurring in the human gut or in fermented foods (such as yoghurt, naturally fermented sauerkraut and kimchi).  Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms that, when administered in sufficient quantities, benefit health.  Briefly, they are the ‘good’ or ‘helpful’ or ‘beneficial’ bacteria.  If you suspect that gut health is compromised by a lack of these good bacteria, or if your child has had a course of antibiotics that will effective destroy the entire crop that might have been present before an illness, you may consider trying to replace them with supplements, yoghurts, fermented foods and even suppositories.

The problem is that probiotic products have not been formally approved nor have health claims been accepted by official food and drug organisations. This means that you have to be very careful of the product you choose to buy.

There has been huge interest in probiotics in recent years – especially in view of new insights to the significance of gut health for so many different medical conditions. These range from depression to autism with a myriad of other health conditions along the way, including Crohn’s disease, constipation, insulin resistance and autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and even ADHD.  Several clinical trials have been done with plenty more in the pipeline.  But there is a big problem. 

The problem is that currently, there’s a lot more hype than solid research to give concrete evidence to what strains of probiotics are effective for what conditions and which manufacturers can be trusted.  If you visit your Health Shop or pharmacist, you’ll see lots of bottles filled with probiotics that are advertised as guaranteed to make your garden flourish.  The downside is the lack of real evidence that any of them will work and no insight to which strains will work for you.  In addition, you won’t know whether or not the product contains any live organisms after being freeze-dried and shipped long distances to sit on a shelf.  Those in the know will tell you that microorganisms need very specific conditions to survive.

Once you try to overcome these hurdles, you will be faced with the biggest problem. This is that many people assume that any probiotic will do.  It’s like saying that you took a drug because you weren’t feeling well without being able to specify what drug or why you chose it.  Having a friend recommend a probiotic or a pharmacy assistant hand you one casually might lead to very limited results.  The best you can do is to ask your doctor or pharmacist for a brand that has some good results (randomized, controlled trial data) supporting its effectiveness. Better still, try to find one that has proved success in treating the specific problem you identify and describe to the pharmacist.

Failing that, live, unsweetened, plain yoghurt is unlikely to hurt.  If your child dislikes yoghurt, blend some fruit into it to make a smoothie.  Don’t buy the yoghurt containing fruit.  That isn’t a food – it’s a sweet dessert with no particular nutritional value. 

So choosing a probiotic is not an easy thing to do.  It is, however, worthwhile persevering because from our own experience, ILT practitioners have seen notable improvements in children whose gut gardens have been tended and begin to flourish.

 

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Are we making our fussy eaters even fussier?

Are we making our fussy eaters even fussier?

Nov 1, 2023 | I'm a Parent, I'm a Teacher, ILT Blog

 

The frustrating problem of fussy eating continues to plague some parents.  Very naturally, families with reluctant eaters often try pressure and persuasion to cajole a child to eat. But are these strategies effective?

A research team from Deakin University’ Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition IPAN found that such strategies largely fail and may turn children into even fussier eaters, interrupting their ability to regulate their own appetite and form healthy eating patterns.

Lead researcher, Dr Alissa Burnett said parents with less fussy children were more likely to encourage healthier eating habits by involving their children in meal preparation and not forcing them to eat.

“The findings tell us that we need to be doing more to help parents of fussy eaters because the strategies they are instinctively using, while well intentioned, are not helping their children develop lifelong healthy eating behaviors,” Dr Burnett said.

“It can be very frustrating when children refuse to eat or refuse to eat certain foods and we start to worry the child will be hungry or is not getting adequate nutrition, so providing well-targeted advice is important.”

The qualitative comparison of mothers’ feeding strategies involved a survey of more than 1,500 mothers of children aged between 2 and 5 and assessed child fussiness levels using the Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire. The mothers were also asked the open-ended question “What are the strategies you use when your child is being fussy or refusing to eat?”

Dr Burnett said the responses described strategies that may inadvertently reinforce fussiness, promote poor appetite self-regulation or poor dietary intake including:

  • I tell them they only have to eat, for example, five mouthfuls of their meal.
  • I tell them that is what’s for dinner; if they don’t eat it, they will go to bed hungry.
  • I tell him, if he eats his dinner he can have dessert, or do an activity he likes.

Parents whose children were less fussy tended to involve their children in meal preparation, let their child to decide when they were full, and serve certain foods repeatedly to encourage their children to try foods they thought they wouldn’t like. Responses from these parents included:

  • I involve him in the shopping for food and in the preparation of meals.
  • I don’t force her to eat if she doesn’t want to. I let her decide how much and how often she would like to eat.
  • I always provide some options that I know they will like, combined with some other things that I want to expose them to.

Dr Burnett said parents of very fussy children were more likely to deconstruct meals, serving pasta and sauce separately, or hide vegetables in meals to get their children to eat more healthy foods.

“Presenting foods in unusual forms or hiding certain ingredients, such as vegetables, might improve dietary intake in the short-term but doesn’t teach children to accept a variety of foods in the longer term,” Dr Burnett said.

More information: Alissa J. Burnett et al, Mothers’ descriptions of their feeding strategies in response to fussy eating with children of different levels of trait fussiness, Appetite (2023).  DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.106581

Journal information: Appetite 

Provided by Deakin University 

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