Parents: For Brain Power, Ensure Your Child Eats Their Colors

Mother Nature surrounds us with beautiful colors all year. Think of green leaves transforming into brilliant reds, oranges and yellows as summer fades into autumn, or imagine a rainbow bursting forth after a spring shower. Fruits and vegetables are no exception with a rich color palette with just about every hue imaginable. Think deep purple eggplants, vibrant red apples, sunny carrots, crisp green lettuce or bright white onions.

Like many parents, you may not think twice about the color of the produce you feed your child. Yet, helping your child eat a diet rich in colorful fruits and veggies can have a profound impact on overall health, including brain health.

In fact, this one behavior—simply eating a wide variety of colors—is one of the most significant dietary habits that you can establish to steer your child toward a healthier future while promoting brain health and protecting brain cells from damage.

Why should you focus on serving up meals in living color? It’s all about the bioactive compounds that plants naturally produce called phytonutrients.

Plants produce a wide variety of these phytonutrients to protect against insect infestations, extreme temperatures, pesticide exposure and other environmental insults. When your child eats them, research shows these very same phytonutrients go to work to protect overall health, including brain health.

What’s the best way to ensure your child is eating the amount and type of phytonutrients that will protect their brain? Make sure they eat a colorful diet. How? Simply focus on eating fruits and veggies with skin or flesh in the five key color groups every day. These color groups include purple, red, orange-yellow, green and white-brown. The good news is it’s easier than you may think.     

Let your child’s inner artist shine

You can encourage your child to be an artist when it comes to selecting fruits and vegetables. Think of it as painting a rainbow on the plate using as many of the colors as possible—red peppers, orange-yellow squash, green beans, purple plums and white-brown mushrooms.

You get the idea. The more colors, the better for your child’s diet. As a general rule, have your child include at least three natural colors on their plate at meal times. Make it a game; see who can design the most colorful plate.

Here’s to fueling growing minds for learning!

Lorna & Kathleen
Co-authors of Eating for A’s

P.S. Like this tip? For more, check out Eating for A’s: A month-by-month nutrition and lifestyle guide to help raise smarter kids. Kindergarten to 6th grade. (Second Edition)

P.S.S. Need goal tracking forms? You’ll find a full set in Eating for A’s—one for each pre-set monthly goal and extra credit. We call them My Smart Tracker forms. You can call them one of the easiest ways to help your kids reach their full potential in the classroom and beyond.