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3.01.2025
Healthy Eating for Preschoolers: Tips from MyPlate.gov
Healthy Eating
It’s important for preschoolers to eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy and fortified soy alternatives. Choose options for meals, beverages, and snacks that have limited added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium.
The amount of food preschoolers need depends on a variety of factors, including age, sex, and physical activity level. Use the MyPlate Plan as a general guide to how much they should eat from each food group every day.
Preschoolers have a wide range of normal growth; every child is different. Your child’s healthcare provider will monitor their growth over time using growth charts and other tools. Be sure to discuss concerns you may have about your child’s growth with their healthcare provider.
Picky Eating
Picky eating is common for many preschoolers as they grow up and become more independent. Try the following tips to help them during this time:
- Your preschooler may not eat the exact amounts suggested every day. Try to balance the amounts over a few days or a week.
- Offer different foods from day to day. Encourage your child to choose from a variety of foods.
- Serve foods in small portions during regular meals and snacks times.
- Your child may not want to try new foods. Try serving a new food with a food they know and like in the same meal. It may take up to 12 tries for a child to accept a new food.
- Let your child help prepare meals. Children get excited about tasting foods when they have helped make them.
Read “Healthy Tips for Picky Eaters” for additional resources!
Serve Safe Food
- Teach your child how to wash their hands after using the bathroom, before and after eating, after playing with pets, and whenever they are dirty.
- Some foods are more likely to cause foodborne illness (or food poisoning). Only serve your preschooler foods with seafood, meat, poultry, or eggs that have been cooked to the recommended safe minimum internal temperatures.
- Avoid serving unpasteurized (raw) juice or milk.
- Do not serve foods to your child that are hard to swallow. Cut them into small pieces of about a half inch. Some types of hard-to-swallow foods can include peanuts, popcorn, round slices of hot dog, hard candy, whole grapes, and cherry tomatoes.
- Have your preschoolers sit down at a table when they eat to prevent choking. Do not let them run, walk, play, or lie down with food in their mouth.
Healthy Eating for Preschoolers – Quick Tips from MyPlate.gov
Healthy eating is important at every age. Start with these tips:
- Model healthy behaviors. Preschoolers tend to copy what parents or caregivers do at the table. If you eat your veggies, they’ll eat their veggies. And, it’s good for both of you.
- Think about their drinks. Sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas and fruit drinks are sources of added sugars that are often high in calories. Beverages with no added sugars like water, unsweetened fat-free or low-fat milk (including low-lactose or lactose-free options), or fortified soy beverages should be the primary choice for children.
- Prevent choking. Encourage children to sit at a table for meals and snacks and not wander around carrying food. Check out the USDA Team Nutrition worksheet for foods that are choking hazards at different ages.
- Try new foods. Let children choose a new food to try at the grocery store. Serve something your child likes along with the new food. It may take up to a dozen tries for a child to accept a new food.
- Get kids involved. Preschoolers can help at mealtimes by washing produce, tearing lettuce, stirring mixes, scooping ingredients, or setting the table.
- Offer choices. Like adults, preschoolers like to have a say in what they eat. “A pear or an apple?” “Whole-wheat toast or some crackers?” You offer the healthy options, but they get to choose.
Source: MyPlate, U.S. Department of Agriculture - https://www.myplate.gov/life-stages/preschoolers
For more resources on healthy eating for children, visit MyPlate.gov or visit the First 5 Nevada Food and Nutrition page. You can also check out these other articles on First 5 Nevada:
