If you have little ones, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about their poop! While fiber for toddlers is so important for easing their constipation, you might be surprised to know that fiber plays a huge role in their overall health and development.
According to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, toddlers need around 14-19 grams of fiber daily, depending on their age.
We asked family health dietitian Cheryl Anderson about why fiber for toddlers is so important. She explains that fiber is such an important nutrient for overall health, but many of us aren’t getting enough each day.
To be sure that your toddler is getting enough, Anderson recommends that you include lots of fruits, veggies, and plant-based proteins in their snacks and meals. More specifically, fiber can be found in plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
There are two types of fiber, insoluble fiber and soluble fiber.
Insoluble fiber, also known as roughage, helps add bulk to stool, making it move more easily through the digestive tract. You can find insoluble fiber in fruits and vegetables (especially the skins), nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
Soluble fiber forms a gel-like substance when eaten which plays an important role in blood sugar regulation and maintaining a healthy gut. It can be found in oats, barley, beans, peas, and citrus fruits, to name a few.
Just like with adults, there are so many ways that fiber can be beneficial for your toddler’s health and development.
Fiber helps to hold onto water and add bulk to stool, increasing the weight and softness to allow stool to move easily through the colon. This makes for stools that are less dry and easier for toddlers to pass, maintaining bowel health and reducing constipation. This can be of particular importance during potty training, as stool that is painful to pass can lead to withholding bowel movements and potty accidents.
It is scientifically well established that eating fiber is important for our gut health. This is because fiber ferments in our colon to feed the beneficial bacteria that lives there. Having diverse and thriving bacteria in your child’s gut is crucial for a healthy digestive system and immune system.
Fiber-rich foods slow down the digestion process and the uptake of sugars into the blood. This helps to keep kids feeling fuller for longer stretches of time.
Anderson explains that when we eat low fiber meals and snacks, such as refined grains or food high in added sugars, we tend to be hungry soon afterwards. This can result in our kids eating more calories than their body needs. The bottom line is that when you offer higher fiber foods at meals and snacks, it may help keep your little ones from begging for snacks constantly, which is a win in our books: full toddlers = happier toddlers!
Eating higher fiber foods helps to slow down the digestion of carbohydrates. “Carbohydrates break down in our digestive tract into sugar molecules which enter the bloodstream to be used by cells,” says Anderson. When the digestion of carbohydrates happens too quickly, too much sugar can enter the blood causing a blood sugar spike. Most parents have likely experienced the high, and resulting low, after their kid had too much candy or cake at a birthday party!
High fiber foods can help slow down this process, allowing the sugar to enter the blood at a slower pace, preventing those dreaded sugar spikes and crashes.
You may be wondering, isn’t worrying about cholesterol for older adults? Not necessarily, high levels of bad cholesterol is not good for anyone’s health, young or old. Anderson suggests that all family members should eat a diet that contains plenty of fiber because it can help lower LDL (aka bad cholesterol) levels. LDL cholesterol is the type that can lead to plaque buildup on artery walls, eventually leading to blockages and other heart health complications later in their lives.
