Experts share potential diet change can have major impact on children's health: 'To grow and develop properly'

For journalist Graihagh Jackson — who hosts BBC's podcast The Climate Question — the question at hand recently was whether she could find a healthy, child-friendly diet that was good for her family and good for the planet. The answer seemed to be a yes' if a careful one.

Exploring the issue in an online commentary, Jackson appeared to be cautiously optimistic about her "quest," laid out in the title of the piece.

While acknowledging that there are special considerations for eliminating meat from a child's diet, Jackson indicated that increasing plant-based food intake can be a healthy option for families, while also satisfying a goal of leaving a healthier Earth for children's futures.

"Regardless of one's specific diet, eating more plants seems like a safe and healthy way to proceed," wrote Jackson.

The article rang a note of caution about completely cutting meat out of children's diets, citing experts who say young children require high levels of nutrients that animal-sourced foods have in abundance. 

"You've got to make sure that the infant and the child get enough of the nutrients that they need to grow and develop properly," said Mary Fewtrell, a pediatric nutrition expert from University College London, in the piece. 

Vegetarian and vegan families can consider nutrient supplements, as Jackson indicated. She also wrote that eating lots of red meat during adolescence could increase breast cancer risk, and even that consuming dairy during childhood has been tied to colorectal cancer.

Research generally indicates that eating more plant-based foods and fewer meaty ones has positive effects on people's lives — including health benefits. 

A study led by University of Edinburgh researchers concluded that, over 10 years, a 30% reduction in processed meat consumption among U.S. adults could prevent more than 350,000 cases of diabetes, 92,500 cases of cardiovascular disease, and 53,300 colon cancer diagnoses.

Jackson said she follows recommendations of the EAT-Lancet Commission, which "favors increasing the consumption of a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes alongside small portions of meat and dairy," according to a summary. The summary said that shifting to this diet could prevent 11 million premature adult deaths annually.

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Meanwhile, Jackson wrote that "environmentally, the case is clear," because plant-rich diets produce less heat-trapping pollution than meat-centered ones. Eating more plants can help keep the planet cooler and avoid the worst impacts of rising global temperatures.

Providing sources, Jackson noted that "about 14% of the world's planet-warming gases are caused by farm animals" and that "If livestock were a country, it would emit the same amount as the U.S. does every year."

In the article, Jackson addressed another issue: getting her kid to eat plants she put on the table. Relaying a friend's advice, she mentioned involving kids in cooking, playing food-centered games, and setting out veggies for kids to sample. Jackson also shared her plan to shop with her son and let him choose produce.

In the end, she saw various reasons for working in more veggies, even imagining a future conversation with her grown son asking if she had done everything she could to limit the impacts of the world's rising temperatures.

"I want to be able to reply yes, I did," Jackson wrote. "I want the best possible future for my kid, and I want him to feel good about those decisions too."

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