Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins, minerals, fiber and disease-preventing phytochemicals. When children do not eat enough fruits and vegetables they run the risk of having low intakes of vitamins A and C.
B complex vitamins: thiamin, niacin, riboflavin and other B vitamin, come from a variety of foods, including grain products, meat and meat substitutes and dairy products.
The healthful benefits of fruits and vegetables, including protection against overweight and decreased risk of chronic disease, make increasing fruits and vegetables consumption in children an important public health issue.
Evidence from the Bogalusa Heart Study, tracking early risk of heart disease among American children, suggest that eating habits in childhood have a potential lifelong effect on cholesterol level and on adult coronary heart disease.
Vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients help create the neurotransmitter that relay signals between these brain children who do not get adequate nutrition in their first few years of life are more likely to have problems throughout life.
A study of British school children found that children who ate fruit more than once per day had better lung function compared with those who did not.
Although five servings a day of fruits and vegetables is the standard recommendation, the more the children eat the better.
Nutritional benefits of fruit and vegetable to children
