Kids Everywhere Need To Eat More Plant-Based Foods, Finds Study

A new study has found that kids and young people around the world are not eating enough nutritious, sustainable, plant-based foods.

The study also noted that, in high-income countries such as the US, children tend to consume fewer and fewer healthy plant foods as they grow older.

Researchers from Tufts University’s Food is Medicine Institute in Boston, US, led the study, which BMJ Global Health published at the start of July.

The researchers analyzed the global, regional, and national intake of plant-based foods among young people in 185 countries from 1990 to 2018. The team looked specifically at the quantity of fruit, non-starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds consumed by people aged 0 to 19.

The study included estimations of global, regional, and national intake, broken down by gender, education history, and whether people lived in urban or rural areas.

Overall, the researchers found that intake of “healthful” plant-based foods varies “substantially by location and demographic,” but that young people globally consume “inadequate” amounts to support human health and a sustainable food system.

‘These findings provide an important benchmark’

As noted by the new study’s authors, healthful plant-based foods can help improve youth nutrition and contribute towards achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 2, ending malnutrition, SDG 3, improving health, and SDG12, promoting sustainable diets. However, global intakes remain low or unquantified.

Sydney Yearley, a student in the Tufts MD/PhD Clinical & Translational Science program, and the study’s first author, said, “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. These findings provide an important benchmark for tracking progress and identifying opportunities to improve access to nutritious foods for children and adolescents.”

‘When children don’t get enough of the right foods, it hurts their bodies and minds’

Photo shows a small child eating a large piece of broccoli at home. A new study has found that children and young people around the world are not eating enough nutritious, sustainable, plant-based foods — Adobe Stock Plant-based and plant-rich diets are good for people’s health, sustainability efforts, and the food system itself

In March, a separate study found that children and teenagers are generally more open to meat-free diets than adults, but can struggle to maintain them without familial support. Meanwhile, a 2025 study found that plant-based foods can aid children’s growth and support their heart health, provided they are effectively planned.

Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist, the director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, and the study’s senior author, said, “When children don’t get enough of the right foods, it hurts their bodies and minds, limiting their energy, metabolism, learning, and mood. Our findings support the importance of identifying gaps and advancing solutions to advance the consumption of minimally processed, healthy plant-foods for children globally.”

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