Guide to healthy food plate: Nutrient-rich daily meal plans for your child

Is planning your child's 'nutrient-rich' daily meal giving you sleepless nights? After all, a well-balanced nutritional diet holds the key to your child's physical and mental growth. A balanced diet offers adequate amounts of all nutrients in right proportions. But in today's hectic life, we often don't pay much attention to this very important requirement. Interestingly, all it requires is a smart combination of the four basic food groups in a child's daily diet:

• Cereals and pulses
• Vegetables and fruits
• Milk and milk products, meat and fish
• Oils, fats, nuts and oilseeds

The food your child eats must also comprise non-nutrients such as dietary fibre, antioxidants and phytochemicals. The quantities of food needed to meet the nutrient requirements vary with age, gender, physiological status and physical activity.

Scroll down to discover nutritional requirements and meal plans you can use for each age group.

Non-nutrients: what are they, why do we need them?

While non-nutrients are not mandatory for the body to function, they still play a vital role in helping us maintain good health. They are compounds produced either by the body or absorbed from the food we eat.

My child's healthy food plate guide

Whether you are serving food at home or packing the food, use this table as a guide to customize your child's nutritious food plate.

Equivalent Measurements

For ease of measurement, you can use measuring cups or measuring spoons. If you want to be sure, you could invest in an electronic kitchen weighing scale.

200 ml - 1 measuring cup

15 ml - 1 measuring tbsp

5 ml - 1 measuring tsp

Note: 

• You can interchange 30g of pulse with 50g of egg/meat/chicken/fish for ages one and above while working up your meal plan.
• For infants, introduce egg/meat/chicken/fish around their ninth month. A quarter cup of egg or meat/fish in the form of soups and broth can be given.

Sample Meal Plan

*From toddlers to preteens, rice in the lunch can be replaced with roti twice a week. Lunch can also be part roti and part rice as per preference. 

(Shiny Lizia is a Chennai-based nutritionist)