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The Mayo Clinic Diet: What is your weight-loss goal? Nutrition for kids is based on the same ideas as nutrition for adults. Everyone needs the same types of things, such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, protein and fat. Children need different amounts of specific nutrients at different ages. The best eating pattern for a child’s growth and development considers the child’s age, activity level and other characteristics. Check out these nutrition basics for kids, based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Food packed with nutrients — with no or limited sugar, saturated fat, or salt added to it — is considered nutrient dense.

Focusing on nutrient-dense foods helps kids get the nutrients they need while limiting overall calories. Choose seafood, lean meat and poultry, eggs, beans, peas, soy products, and unsalted nuts and seeds. Encourage your child to eat a variety of fresh, canned, frozen or dried fruits. Look for canned fruit that says it’s light or packed in its own juice. This means it’s low in added sugar.

4 cup of dried fruit counts as one serving of fruit. Serve a variety of fresh, canned, frozen or dried vegetables. Choose peas or beans, along with colorful vegetables each week. When selecting canned or frozen vegetables, look for ones that are lower in sodium. Choose whole grains, such as whole-wheat bread or pasta, oatmeal, popcorn, quinoa, or brown or wild rice.

Encourage your child to eat and drink fat-free or low-fat dairy products, such as milk, yogurt and cheese. Fortified soy beverages also count as dairy. Naturally occurring sugars, such as those in fruit and milk, aren’t added sugars. Examples of added sugars include brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup and honey.

To avoid added sugar, check nutrition labels. Choose cereals with minimal added sugars. Avoid sodas and other drinks with added sugars. Saturated fats mainly come from animal sources of food, such as red meat, hot dogs, poultry, butter and other full-fat dairy products. Pizza, sandwiches, burgers and burritos are a common source of saturated fat. Desserts such as cakes and ice cream are another common source of saturated fat. When cooking, look for ways to replace saturated fats with vegetable and nut oils, which provide essential fatty acids and vitamin E.

Most children in the United States have too much salt in their daily diets. Another name for salt is sodium. Salt can hide in sandwiches, where the sodium in bread, meat, condiments and toppings adds up. Processed foods, such as pizza, pasta dishes and soup, often have high amounts of salt.