Nutrients Your Child Needs for Brain Development
by Martin Prosser | January 22, 2024 | 5 min read
Proper nutrition is crucial for your child's brain development and function — and food plays an important role.
The question becomes, what nutrients should children be given for healthy cognitive development? And how can you adjust their diet to meet their nutritional needs?
The answer is incorporating delicious fruits, whole grains, and veggies that your children love into their daily diet. This may take some time, and some testing, but the amazing acceleration of their development makes it all worth it.
Fruits
Fruits such as apples, plums, and white grapes contain quercetin, an antioxidant that fights against the decline of cognitive skills (memory). Berries contain anthocyanins and other flavonoids with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Eating a diet rich in antioxidant foods can improve mental function, prevent damage caused by free radicals and keep the brain cells strong.
Grains
Whole oats and grains are essential suppliers of fiber and carbohydrates. They help improve your child’s concentration by giving the brain a constant energy supply for strong focus and attention. They are also a great source of nutrients such as iron, folate, zinc, protein, potassium, and vitamins important to aid a child's brain working at full capacity. The blend of nutrients in whole-grain foods have also been shown in clinical studies to perk up auditory attention and memory cognition in children (5-13).
Vegetables
Brightly colored vegetables , such as carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, dark leafy greens, cabbage, and broccoli are rich in antioxidants. They keep brain cells strong and fight free drastic damage. Green leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard, kale, and collard greens are important sources of folate and iron, among other nutrients. Folates are essential natural tonics for your child's brain. Avocado supplies unsaturated fats that support blood flow to the brain. They also have oleic acid that protects myelin.
The most import thing is testing foods out, every child is different and can eat a different combination of nutrient rich fruits and veggies.
Vitamin A
Liver, carrots, sweet potato, and spinach are good sources of this vitamin.
Vitamin D
This is the "sunshine vitamin," and the best way to get it is to go outside. The flesh of fatty fishes such as salmon has it, as well as fish liver oil, and products fortified with it, such as fortified milk.
Vitamin B6
The best sources of vitamin B6 are liver and other organ meats, fish, potatoes, other starchy vegetables, and fruit (not citrus).
Remember that dairy or non-dairy milk is not recommended as primary beverages for children under age 1.