Overview
Why Nutrition Changes with Development
A child’s diet must support both current function and the next phase of growth.
A child’s diet must support both current function and the next phase of growth. Infants have rapid brain and body development, toddlers need nutrient-dense food despite fluctuating appetite, and adolescents may have sharply increased needs during a growth spurt. The same intake can therefore be adequate for one child and inadequate for another. Age is only the starting point. Feeding skill, dentition, activity, illness, prematurity, chronic disease, food allergy, restrictive eating, and food access all change nutritional risk. Recommendations for healthy term infants should not be applied automatically to a premature infant or a child with a condition affecting absorption, swallowing, metabolism, or growth; those children need an individualized plan. Growth is the clinical result of nutrition over time. A single meal tells little, whereas the child’s growth trajectory, usual intake, feeding behaviour, and physical condition together reveal whether intake is meeting demand.