Lower Fat Diet Does Not Appear to Interfere with Brain Development in Children.

Dietary Guidelines for children over the age of 2 encourage caregivers to gradually adopt a diet that has no more than 30% of calories from fat by the time the children reach 5 years. This recommendation was developed in order to reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity later in life. Many vegetarian children between 2-5 eat a diet that has no more than 30% of calories from fat; so this is of interest to many vegetarian families.

We have previously reported on studies showing that children on diets that are lower in fat than typical American diets grow normally. A recent study examined the neurological development (speech and language skills, motor skills, and visual function) of children who had received a low-saturated fat, low-cholesterol diet since infancy. Parents of around 1,000 Finnish infants were either instructed to limit their child's fat intake to 30-35% of calories (with approximately 10% of calories from saturated fat, 10% from monounsaturated fat, and 10% from polyunsaturated fat) and to limit cholesterol to less than 200 milligrams per day, while other parents were given routine health information (no limitation of fat, saturated fat, nor cholesterol). When the children were 5 years old, they were tested for neurological development. There was no significant neurological difference found between the two groups of children. However, the children who were on the lower-fat, lower-cholesterol diet had lower blood cholesterol levels.

The question of the appropriate level of fat for children has not been conclusively resolved. It does appear, from this study, that a diet with 30% of calories from fat leads to a reduction in blood cholesterol levels without interfering with neurological development.

Rask-Nissila L, Jokinen E, Terho P, et al. 2000. Neurological development of 5-year-old children receiving a low-saturated fat, low-cholesterol diet since infancy: A randomized controlled trial. JAMA 248:993-1000.