Recommended quantity / frequency of meat for 7 year old

Question

My daughter is 7 years old and we often feed her meat about 15-17 meals per week (out of 21). However, I am concerned that we are giving her meat too often.

I realize that there maybe guidelines for both quantity and frequency (e.g., do not give the entire weekly allotment of meat in a single serving or perhaps have at least one day per week without red meat or without any meat, etc.). So, I am wondering, what standards are there (for a 7 year old) for how much meat to give them and how frequently to give it?

Answer 1

Meat, in and of itself, isn't something that you must eat any particular amount of. Many people are quite successful vegetarians and vegans, even as children, and on the other side of things, well, many children have meat-centric meals at least as much as you describe with no ill effects.

The important consideration is the diet as a whole, and what effect meat has on that. The kind of meat, in particular, matters; eating skinless chicken breasts you're eating nearly entirely protein, zero fat or close to it. Eating a breakfast (pork) sausage on the other hand is a huge amount of fat, mostly saturated.

Children's needs aren't all that different from adult's needs, except that there are some things that may benefit them in their development (although most things like that are speculative still). Fish (particularly cold water fish) for example is supposed to help with brain development because of some of the fats in it. In general, though, ensuring your child is active and eating a normal amount of calories with a balance of protein, fat (some, not none!), and vitamins is what is important. If she chooses (or you choose for her) to get that protein through meat, then that's fine, so long as it doesn't mean she's eating a huge amount of fat along with it.

If you're looking for some specific guidelines to make this easier, look around; there are many good references out there. Some examples:

The Mayo Clinic Guidelines are a good place to start. For a girl at seven, she should be eating 1200-1800 calories, with 3-5 ounces (85-140g) protein-containing foods per day.

HealthyChildren.org's guidelines recommend 3-4 ounces (85-115g) of meat and beans per day.

The USDA's Choose My Plate site recommends for a 6-8 year old eating 1400 calories per day, 4 ounces of protein foods as well. They also recommend at most 4 ounces of oils (=fats) per day (115g).

Answer 2

The recommendations on how much of a particular food group should be included in a healthy diet give amounts per day, and aren't so concerned about which meals each item is included in.

Depending on which set of guidelines you look at, a seven year old girl should be getting 3-5 ounces of lean proteins a day.

Here are a couple of links to charts that break down amounts of the different food groups for age and gender. The chart from the American Heart Association is a bit more restrictive on protein than the Mayo Clinic one.

• American Heart Association, Dietary Recommendations for Healthy Children
• Mayo Clinic, Nutrition for kids: Guidelines for a healthy diet

Answer 3

Red meat and processed meat is associated with an increased risk of colo-rectal cancer. Adults who eat more than 90g of red or processed meat per day are advised to cut down to less than 70g.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/red-meat.aspx

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/meat.aspx

I'm not sure if you're including "fish" in your definition of meat. There are limits to the amount of fish that adults and children eat because of pollutants that are stored in the fat.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/fish-shellfish.aspx#much2

Meat products can be high in salt. Children, especially young children, can have difficulty processing salt and you may wish to keep an eye on that.

Meat and meat products tend to be low in dietary fibre. You'll want to make sure that plenty of fibre is included in the diet.

You probably want to avoid British style barbecue - quick cooking over very hot open charcoal. This tends to have burnt outside and possibly undercooked inside. The undercooking is risky for some types of meat. The burnt bits are harmful for all meat. Often the meat is cooked in smoke and those hydrocarbons are risky, although the risk of food poisoning is much greater.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/Barbecuefoodsafety.aspx

Meat and meat products are a significant source of food poisoning. You should learn your local advice for avoiding food poisoning and carefully follow that. The advice does differ in different countries - in England you're not supposed to wash chickens before cooking them. Other countries don't have that restriction.