Nutrition education strategies to improve knowledge on nutrition and communicating with children

The March/April 2026 issue of Contemporary Pediatrics Journal highlights three articles that focus on nutrition in the pediatric population. Each particle offers a unique way of addressing different portions of the nutritional guidance provided during pediatric office visits.

Featured articles

Colleen Sloan’s article focuses on 5 strategies to improve nutrition counseling during pediatric health care visits.¹ She provides excellent recommendations for talking with parents during the health care visits, covering a variety of topics, including talking with and about picky eaters and children who are overweight or obese.

Another article about nutritional considerations in pediatric food allergies is written in a question-and-answer style format and presents the most common food allergies, as well as ways to speak with parents and children about food allergies.² Current recommendations to introduce allergenic foods in high-risk infants are discussed, as well as the principles of introducing foods during oral immunotherapy.²

The third article provides a discussion on the new 2025-2030 dietary guidelines and implications for clinical practice.³ These guidelines stress the importance of children consuming minimally processed foods, gut health, and the microbiome. These recommendations have the potential to influence public health policies at the national level, which have not been addressed adequately in the past. The discussion also focuses on the need to increase protein intake and reduce fat intake.

Educational interventions to improve nutrition knowledge and communication with children and parents

I have had wonderful experiences with children over the many years of working as a pediatric nurse practitioner. Often, children are straightforward talkers and say exactly what they think. Here is a statement a child with a diagnosis of Celiac disease made to me in my office when I asked about the foods she was eating: “The foods I eat taste like cardboard! Have you ever tasted cardboard?”

At that moment, I realized I did not know what being restricted to a gluten diet felt like, or, for that matter, what many of the diets I prescribe for children actually tasted like. Or how the diets made them feel. Thus, I decided to try some of the diets, and as a clinical professor, I also created an educational experience to evaluate how my students also felt about the diets they were prescribed. I wondered if we would feel differently after this experience when we speak with the children and parents about nutrition and meals.

The plan was to eat only foods allowed on a specific diet for 3 days in a row, to record how you felt, and how this may impact your communication with children about the prescribed diet. Each week, we followed a different diet. Week one, out of respect for my little patient, we started with the gluten-free diet. Students reported how difficult it was to find gluten-free foods in the grocery stores and to follow the diet. Some restaurants had a small selection of gluten-free meals, but many did not. Students also reported the difference in taste and how much they missed their regular food intake.

Over the course of the semester, we experienced a variety of diets, including the diabetic diet, thinking of ourselves as adolescents, various vegetarian diets, and weight loss diets. Each diet provided a different experience for all of us. Foods we enjoyed were removed from our food intake as we followed the dietary restrictions. This exercise provided real-world experiences felt by the children and provided insights on how to speak with the children and parents about meeting their nutritional needs.

I feel that if I had completed this exercise before talking with my patient who had Celiac Disease, my response to her would have been very different. I would have said, “Yes, I have tried the gluten-free diet and understand better what you are feeling. Let’s talk.”

If you have not experienced any of the diets you prescribe, I highly recommend trying these three-day dietary restriction diets to learn first-hand how the children and teens feel and better ways to help them follow their diets.

References

1. Sloan C. 5 strategies to improve nutrition counseling in pediatric care. Contemporary Pediatrics. Published March 31, 2026. Accessed April 25, 2026. https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/view/5-strategies-nutrition-counseling-in-pediatric-care

2. Stukus D. Nutrition consideration in pediatric food allergy. Contemporary Pediatrics. Published April 9, 2026. Accessed April 25, 2026. https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/view/nutrition-considerations-in-pediatric-food-allergy

3. Ebert M. New dietary guidelines: Implication for clinical practice. Contemporary Pediatrics. Published February 13, 2026. Accessed April 25, 2026. https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/view/new-dietary-guidelines-implications-for-clinical-practice