How Much Protein Does Your Child Need?
Good quality protein is an important part of a healthy diet for every growing child. And the reason is very simple.
Protein is particularly essential for growth of children because it’s needed to build, maintain and strengthen every cell, muscle, bone and organ in the human body. The body also uses protein to build red blood cells and disease fighting immune system antibodies. So it’s pretty clear that protein plays a very important role in the growth and development of a strong, healthy child.
So let’s take a look at what is good quality protein and exactly how much protein does your child need on a daily basis from their diet to be as strong and as healthy as possible.
When your child eats protein, digestive juices break the protein down into many different individual amino acids, of which 22 are important for human health. Of these 22, nine are considered to be essential, because your body cannot manufacture them on its own, They must be digested from protein rich foods.
These amino acids are then rejoined together to make thousands of different new proteins in the body. If you think of each individual amino acid as a bead, you can see how they can be threaded together in endless combinations to form new proteins.
Protein is found in many foods. The best (i.e. most complete) sources, however, are animal foods such as beef, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products (milk, yogurt and cheese). Excellent non-animal sources include nuts, seeds and legumes (beans and lentils).
Animal proteins are considered to be complete because they contain all of the nine essential amino acids. Since vegetable protein lacks one or more of the nine essential amino acids, it is considered to be incomplete. However, by eating a variety of protein rich foods throughout the day, for example rice and beans or a peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread, people on a vegetarian diet can still get the essential amino acids they need.
It’s pretty easy to figure out how much protein your child needs. All you need to know is how much your child weighs and divide that number by two. Kids, as well as adults, need one gram of protein for every two pounds of body weight.
Getting enough protein in your child’s diet is usually not a problem if they’re eating a good diet and not stuffing themselves with empty calories from sweets and junk foods.
For example, they’ll get 7 grams of protein from a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter, 8 grams from a glass of low fat milk, 7 grams from a small hunk of cheese, over 10 grams from a small chicken breast and even two grams from ½ cup of broccoli.