Nutrition and the Child’s Growth
Healthy food choices have a strong impact on a child’s growth. A growth chart shows the relationship between a child’s height and weight, and the curve of that chart is extremely important — it monitors whether a child’s weight and height are growing at the same rate. A child’s growth chart gives real information about their nutritional needs. As a practical guideline, each of a child’s meals should include a fruit, a vegetable, grains, a source of protein, and dairy.
Diet: What Changes as a Preschooler Grows
A child’s requirement for dietary fat decreases during the preschool years. As a preschooler’s body matures, it’s time to cut down on high-fat foods like whole milk and cheese — the low-fat diet considered good for adults becomes appropriate for the child too at this stage. The practical guideline is simple: serve children a wide variety of foods, including plenty of fruits and vegetables.
Educational Implications of Good Nutrition
Good nutritional choices in early childhood ripple outward into nearly every area of a child’s development covered elsewhere in this course:
| Area of Impact | What the Evidence Shows |
| Developmental tracking | Children whose good nutritional choices are reinforced early are more likely to stay on track developmentally. |
| Cognitive development | Children who eat nutritiously in early childhood are likely to do better in school, score higher on tests, and have fewer chances of speech and language delays. |
| Physical development | Nutritiously-fed children are more likely to grow and gain weight at a healthy pace; they’re physically stronger and better able to fight off illness quickly. |
| Emotional and social development | Children who eat well-balanced meals tend to be more advanced both emotionally and socially — balanced meals help them develop social skills, participate in group activities, and make friendships, all essential during the preschool years. |
Nutrition isn’t a separate concern from cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development — it’s one of the concrete, daily mechanisms through which all four of those areas actually develop well or poorly.
