Children Not Eating Enough Plant-Based Foods, Finds 30-Year Study

A global study has revealed that young populations are consuming low amounts of plant-based food, pointing to a critical nutrition gap among children.

Globally, children are eating lower amounts of plant-based foods than they should, potentially raising the risk of a host of diet-related diseases.

Analysis of diets over nearly 30 years found that children under the age of one are eating just 1.19 servings of nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes, rising to 3.55 daily servings for 15- to 19-year-olds.

Most regions see the consumption of plant-based foods increase as people grow older, except for high-income countries. In the US, for instance, children consume among the highest amounts of these foods during infancy (2.7 servings a day), but among the lowest by the time they reach later childhood and adolescence (1.8 servings).

This, the researchers said, suggests that American families are successful in establishing healthy eating habits early in life, but find it challenging to maintain them throughout later stages.

“Dietary habits established during childhood can influence health throughout life, yet we found that consumption of healthy plant-based foods remains low among youth across the globe,” said Sydney Yearley, a clinical and translational science student at Tufts University, who led the study.

“These findings provide an important benchmark for tracking progress and identifying opportunities to improve access to nutritious foods for children and adolescents,” she added.

Plant-based food consumption among children grew in all regions except one

In the study, published in BMJ Global Health, researchers analysed dietary data from the Global Dietary Database, which contains comprehensive information about what people eat and drink.

They employed a large statistical model incorporating data from more than 1,200 dietary surveys from 185 countries between 1990 and 2018, examining the consumption trends of five healthful plant-based food groups: fruits, non-starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables (excluding potatoes), beans and legumes, and nuts and seeds.

The research, which covered people from birth to 19 years of age, provides estimates of intake at the global, regional, and national levels, including differences by sex, household education, and urban or rural residence.

Countries in East and Southeast Asia had some of the highest consumption rates of plant-based foods, mostly because children and adolescents here ate more non-starchy vegetables, which the researchers said “may reflect cultural preferences and traditional market affordability”.

However, overall intake of healthy plant-based food in this region remains below recommendations, which indicates challenges around food system inefficiencies, production gaps, costs or educational and cultural barriers.

In affluent nations, fruit and vegetable intake uniquely declines with age, suggesting that despite higher purchasing power, other factors like youth autonomy, food environments or cultural norms have a heavy influence among older youth in these countries. Many of these have early-life nutrition programmes that include healthy plant-based foods, which could explain the higher rates at the youngest ages.

Globally, total intake of plant-based whole foods increased in all regions in the period analysed except South Asia, where consumption rates were lowest. On a countrywide level, the rates were highest in Vietnam, Congo, and Mexico, and lowest in Spain, Pakistan, and the UK.

Demographically, across most regions, girls ate more fruits and non-starchy vegetables, urban youth consumed more fruits, nuts and seeds, and those from higher-educated households had higher intakes of all plant-based foods except beans or legumes.

Researchers highlight policy priorities for childhood nutrition

The study highlights how poor diets in childhood are a source of major health burdens, including malnutrition and undernutrition, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease later in life.

Research suggests that more than half of the world’s children don’t meet the WHO-Unicef dietary guidelines for fruits and vegetables, while two-thirds fall short on recommendations for beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

“When children don’t get enough of the right foods, it hurts their bodies and minds, limiting their energy, metabolism, learning, and mood,” said senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.

“Our findings support the importance of identifying gaps and advancing solutions to advance the consumption of minimally processed, healthy plant foods for children globally,” he added.

Previous analyses have shown that well-planned vegan and vegetarian diets can be healthy for children, with a major review of 27 studies revealing that vegan children are less likely to be obese or overweight, with healthier body compositions than those who eat meat, dairy, and eggs.

This latest research from Tufts comes as health becomes increasingly important for the next generation. This is the primary dietary motivator for vegans and omnivores alike, with over a third of Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids saying so in a 2025 study.

This is why there has been a major push to expand access to plant-based nutrition in schools across the world, including in the US, Poland, and Taiwan. In fact, the study outlines a number of opportunities for policy development around childhood nutrition.

It proposes strengthening and extending early childhood nutrition schemes in high-income countries, enhancing access to diverse vegetables in South Asia through agricultural policy and market interventions, leveraging existing cultural preferences for vegetables in East and Southeast Asia while addressing gaps in fruit and vegetable intake, and implementing equity-focused interventions targeting rural and lower-education households.