Nutrition is key for children and adolescents following a cancer diagnosis

Providing balanced nutrition is a challenge for many parents and guardians. Picky eaters, busy schedules, and limited resources can all make it difficult to provide a balanced diet for children. A cancer diagnosis makes proper nutrition critical and more challenging. Side effects, such as decreased appetite, nausea and taste changes, can put pediatric cancer patients at risk for malnutrition.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) understands these challenges and works to ensure healthcare professionals, like you, are equipped with resources to help patients and their families manage nutrition after a cancer diagnosis. We are here for you, your patients and their caregivers.

Need a one stop shop for all things nutrition?

LLS’s Nutrition Education Services Center (NESC) supports all cancer patients, not just blood cancer patients. Our registered dietitians have expertise in oncology nutrition, and they are available for free one-on-one phone consultations. Consultations may include:

• Answers to questions about nutrition
• Strategies to manage side effects
• Recommendations to improve nutrition
• Tips for meal planning and grocery shopping
• Information and advice for parents and guardians
• Questions to ask their child’s doctor
• Additional nutrition resources

Nutrition consultations are intended for general education purposes. Due to the nature of the consultations, some services are not available, such as recommendations for supplements, prescription diet orders, and nutrition therapy by tube or IV. The NESC is also not able to assist with urgent medical needs that require immediate attention.

Interpreter services are available.

You can easily refer a patient and our schedulers will give them a call. Or, parents and guardians can schedule or call (877) 467-1936.

In addition, you can share the following resources with your patients and families. The NESC website, LLSnutrition.org, provides nutrition tips, resources, recipes and more. This includes information about nutrition and childhood cancer, nutrition needs based on cancer diagnosis, meal and snack ideas, and side effect management. Check out the NESC blog posts for articles on timely nutrition topics. Watch these helpful videos about making good food choices.

We also offer the Nutrition Handbook for Parents: Feeding your children and building healthy habits for free to order or download. This booklet outlines nutrition basics, meal planning, grocery shopping and resources specific to the care of children. Additionally, it comes with an illustrated booklet titled Food Fun: Nutrition to learn, grow and play so children can learn about nutrition too.

Parents and guardians can also download the free LLS Health Manager App to manage their child’s health by tracking side effects, medication, food and hydration, questions for the doctor, grocery lists and more. With the app, users can also create reports to share with their child’s oncology team.

Refer your patients and their families to the LLS Nutrition Education Service Center’s registered dietitians today!