• Posted July 9, 2026

Global Study Finds Kids Worldwide Skipping Fruits And Vegetables

Kids around the world aren’t eating enough fruits and veggies, a major new analysis has found.

Plant-based foods are rich in essential nutrients that support children’s normal development and long-term health, researchers said.

But globally kids aren’t consuming the amount of fruits or vegetables recommended by nutrition experts, researchers reported July 8 in the journal BMJ Global Health.

Worldwide, children under age 1 ate a little more than one serving per day, while older teens ate fewer than four daily servings on average, the study showed.

In the United States, that trend was reversed, researchers found.

Baby and toddler Americans were among top consumers of fruits and vegetables for their age worldwide, but older children had some of lowest consumption levels, the study 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,” said lead researcher Sydney Yearley, a medical and doctoral student at Tufts University in Boston.

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

American guidelines call for children under age 4 to eat about 1 cup of fresh fruit and 1 cup of fresh vegetables every day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As they approach adulthood, teenagers should be eating at least 3 cups of fresh vegetables and 2 cups of fresh fruit daily, based on the latest Dietary Guidelines For Americans.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data from more than 1,200 dietary surveys from 185 countries to track childhood consumption of five types of plant-based foods: fruit; non-starchy vegetables; starchy veggies; beans and legumes; and nuts and seeds.

Results showed that total intake of healthy plant-based foods among children increased globally between 1990 and 2018, with South Asia being the only region that had no increase.

In the U.S., children younger than 2 ate nearly three servings of fruits or vegetables daily, but kids between 2 and 19 ate fewer than two servings, the study found.

This suggests that American families are establishing healthy eating patterns early in a child’s life, but maintaining those habits into the teen years remains a challenge, researchers said.

Consumption of healthy, plant-based foods decreases with age only in high-income countries, researchers noted.

“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 researcher Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, 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 in a news release.

More information

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

SOURCES: Tufts University, July 8, 2026; BMJ Global Health, July 8, 2026