Nutrition News

Kellogg's Nutrition - Get a Taste for the Healthy Life™

Insoluble and Soluble Fiber

Why is fiber so important for kids? Fiber helps keep kids healthy by:

  • Helping to keep the digestive system healthy so it can absorb nutrients and turn food into energy.
  • Developing and maintaining a healthy population of gastrointestinal bacteria. 26
  • Helping to prevent of constipation. 26
  • Establishing a healthful eating habit early in life, which is more likely to be sustained throughout. 26

In addition, observational studies have shown that children with higher-fiber intakes are less likely to be overweight than those with low-fiber intakes. Higher-fiber diets during childhood have also been shown to be inversely related to blood cholesterol levels. 27

Unfortunately, nine out of 10 children are not getting the recommended amount of fiber. A simple way to help children take small steps towards meeting their recommended intake is to set achievable goals. Many nutrition professionals recommend the "age plus 5" approach. Simply start with the age of the child and add 5. The sum offers a good rule of thumb for fiber needed each day. For example, a 5-year-old should strive to get at least 10 grams of fiber per day (5 years + 5 grams = 10 grams per day). After the age of 19, the guidelines for adults (25g per day for women and 38g per day for men) should be followed.

Professional organizations, such as the American Dietetic Association and American Heart Association recommend that children 2 years of age and over adopt a healthy eating style similar to adults. 28, 29 In other words, children need to eat a variety of foods from each food group, including a variety of fiber-containing foods like grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes.

 

Giving Children a Healthy Start to the Day

Years of research have shown that eating breakfast can help improve cognitive and academic performance, including improved memory, attention, problem solving and logical reasoning. 30 Children who don't eat breakfast are likely to feel tired and hungry and find it difficult to concentrate and learn.

Recent research is now showing that what children eat at breakfast can also have an impact how kids do in school. A study of 6-11-year-old children, who ate either a high-fiber, slowly digested breakfast or a more rapidly digested low-fiber meal performed better on short-term memory and auditory tasks following the high-fiber meal.31 The authors of the study suggest that this effect may be due to the higher-fiber breakfast (such as Kellogg's® Frosted Mini-Wheats®) providing a more sustained energy source, which helped improve cognitive performance for a longer period of time.

Work in the U.K. has also shown that a child's performance declines throughout the morning, but that the level of decline can be slowed down by eating high-fiber, ready-to-eat cereal, giving a more sustained release of energy compared to a low-fiber cereal that is quickly digested. 32

References:

  1. Pereira et al (2001) Dietary Fiber and body weight regulation. Observations and mechanisms. Pediatr Clin North Am 48: 969-980
  2. Williams CL et al (2008) Childhood diet, overweight and CVD risk facts: the Healthy Start Project. Prev Cardiol 11: 11-20
  3. American Dietetic Association (2008) Nutrition Guidance for Health Children Ages 2 to 11 years J Am Diet Assoc 108:1038-1047
  4. American Academy of Pediatrics (1999) Guide to your Childs Nutrition
  5. Rampersaud et al (2005) Breakfast habits, nutritional status, body weight and academic performance in children and adolescents. J AM Diet Ass 105: 743-760
  6. Mahoney CR et al (2005) Effect of breakfast composition on cognitive processes in elementary school children. Physiol Behav 85: 635-45
  7. Ingwersen J et al (2007) A low glycaemic index breakfast cereal preferentially prevents children's cognitive performance from declining throughout the morning. Appetite 49: 240-4