Nutritional Building Blocks: 6 Nourishment Your Child Needs At Every Level

Kafayat Olawale

Resolving what to feed your tiny humans who depend on the right nutritional building blocks to grow their delicate brain and bodies can be quite elusive. Particularly when you consider that nutritional deficiencies can stunt your child’s growth and overall development on a permanent basis.

For kids past the age of 1, breast milk and formula soon go out of style and its time to replace with carefully selected foods capable of providing nourishment for the next developmental years of your child.

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Children definitely have different nutritional needs from adults and as a parent , you should be concerned about whether you are starting up your child on the right nutrients for their optimum growth.

The most important vitamins that your kids needs are :

1. Calcium

Calcium is  the essential  building block of bones and teeth, important for optimal bone health throughout a lifetime. This means the more bones you help your child build now, the more reserves they’ll have when bone loss begins in the later adult years.

Recommended Daily Amounts of calcium for kids

• Ages 1-3: 700 milligrams (mg)
• Ages 4-8: 1000 mg daily
• Ages 9-18: 1300 mg daily

Food Sources Of Calcium: Dairy products (milk, yogurt, and cheese), fortified foods, salmon, and dark green leafy vegetables such as kale.

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Note: If your kid can’t eat dairy foods for  some health reason, you should help them get calcium from other food sources as soybeans, vegetables

2. Fibre

Fibre is also known as roughage, it is the parts of plant foods that cannot be absorbed or digested by the body.

Although not a vitamin or mineral, fibre rich foods are typically packed with important nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin E, calcium, potassium and magnesium, and are essential to maintaining a healthy digestive system. This makes such food essential as they really help to keep us ‘regular’, support gut health and healthy body weight.

Although kids are much smaller than adults, their bodies also need just about as much fiber as grown-ups in order to aid and maintain a healthy digestive system.

Recommended Daily Amounts of Fibre For Kids:

• Ages 1-3: 19 grams daily
• Ages 4-8: 26 grams daily
• Ages 9-13: 31 grams daily

Food Sources Of Fibre: Legumes ( Beans, peas, soybeans, peanuts, etc), Nuts and Seeds (cashew nuts, walnuts, Ogbono, etc), Fruits (Berries, pears, watermelon, oranges), Whole Grains (Oats, whole wheat, etc).

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3. B12 and other B Vitamins

Vitamin B complex for kids is a wholesome combination of 8 important vitamins crucial for your child’s metabolism, as it helps in boosting mental and physical growth, energy, a great heart function as well as nervous system.

Recommended Daily Amounts Of Vitamin B:

• Ages 1-3: 0.9 micrograms daily.
• Ages 4-8: 1.2 micrograms daily.
• Ages 9-13: 1.8 micrograms daily.

Food Sources Of B Vitamins: B vitamin sources come mainly from animal-based foods, like meat, poultry, fish, and eggs.  More B vitamin sources include yogurt, leafy green vegetables, sea foods, beans and peas.

4. Vitamin D

Vitamin D is vital but not abundant in food sources, in other words, very few foods have vitamin D naturally.

This vitamin works with calcium to help your child build strong bones nonetheless and it has made it to your child’s nutrition  list for the reason that it helps the body absorb calcium from the foods that we eat, it may also help protect against chronic disease later in life.

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Food Sources Of  Vitamin D:

Some fish, including salmon, mackerel, and sardines, are excellent sources of vitamin D, as are eggs (D is found in the yolk) and fortified milk. Still, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends vitamin D supplements for all kids, unless they’re getting 400 IU from their diet

5.  Vitamin E

Vitamin E is key for strong immunity, healthy skin and eyes of your baby. It also helps keep blood vessels clear and flowing well.

Recommended Daily Amounts Of Vitamin E:

• Ages 1-3: 9 IU  daily.
• Ages 4-10: 10.4 IU daily.

Food Sources Of Vitamin E:

Vegetable oils such as sunflower and safflower oils, as well as nuts and seeds including almonds, hazelnuts and sunflower seeds, are excellent vitamin E sources.

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6. Iron

Iron is the essential vitamin in the creation of red blood cells, that transport oxygen from the lungs to the body. iron is an important component of hemoglobin that allows the hemoglobin to bind with oxygen and distribute throughout the body.

Recommended Daily Amounts Of Iron:

• Ages 1-3: 7 milligrams daily
• Ages 4-8: 10 milligrams daily
• Ages 9-13: 8 milligrams daily

Food Sources Of Iron:

Organ meats, beef liver, spinach, pumpkin seeds, turkey meat, red meat and more.