What Are The Caloric Needs Of A Child?

What are the Caloric Needs of a Child?

Aug 12, 2010 | By Michele Turcotte, MS, RD

A child's energy or caloric needs vary greatly and may change from one year to the next. Factors that determine a child's daily caloric needs include age, gender and activity level.

Young Children

The Estimated Energy Requirement, developed by the National Institutes of Health, is a calculation that represents the average daily caloric intake needed to maintain energy balance in a healthy person of a given gender, height, weight, age and physical activity level. Health professionals, particularly those working in nutrition and wellness, use the calculation.
The EER for moderately active boys and girls aged 2 to 3 is 1,000 to 1,400 calories daily, according to the National Institutes of Health. After age 1, growth rate generally slows until age 4. Moderately active children aged 4 to 8 require 1,400 to 1,600 calories--the same amount as many adult women.

Pre-Adolescence

Caloric requirements are the same for moderately active boys and girls until about the age of 9. At that time, boys begin to add more muscle mass, whereas girls start to add more body fat. Thus, boys require more calories daily to maintain this muscle mass. Moderately active girls aged 9 to 13 require 1,600 to 2,000 calories daily, while very active girls in this age group may need 1,800 to 2,200 calories daily to support optimum growth. Moderately active boys aged 9 to 13 require 1,800 to 2,200 calories. Very active boys aged 9 to 13 may need 2,000 to 2,600 calories.

Teenagers

Teenagers have frequent growth spurts. Thus, they require the most calories of all of the age groups. Moderately active girls aged 14 to 18 on average require 2,000 calories per day. If they are active to very active, however, their caloric needs rise to about 2,400 calories per day. Moderately active boys in this age group generally need 2,400 to 2,800 calories daily. But active to very active boys aged 14 to 18 require more calories than most active adult men, or 2,800 to 3,200.