Best Books About Healthy Eating and Nutrition for Kids
Choosing healthy snacks can be tricky when kids are surrounded by candy and fast food. Not only in the kitchen, but also in books, too. That’s why children’s books about healthy eating can help make fruits, vegetables, and whole grains look like normal and fun options.
When caregivers read nutritious books with their kids, they can learn tips for the whole family! Feeding specialists and occupational therapists can also use books about healthy eating during appointments with children.
Nourishing foods are important for keeping your digestive system happy. Check out these helpful children’s books about healthy eating with realistic and relatable illustrations!
Best books about healthy eating for toddlers and preschoolers
These sturdy books are a fun and lyrical way to introduce healthy foods to little ones. Eating the food in these books can also help kids poop more easily!
Rah, Rah, Radishes! A Vegetable Chant
This book celebrates the joy of eating vegetables with beautiful photographs and catchy rhymes. The vibrant pictures of farm stands and markets show what raw veggies look like! Each simple chant encourages little kids to chime in with grown-up readers.
To encourage kids to enjoy delicious fruits, check out Go, Go, Grapes! A Fruit Chant, which the same author wrote.
N is for Nutrition: Rhymes by the Alphabet
This sweet board book features simple rhymes and positive language about plant-based foods. With each letter in the alphabet, kids learn about vegetables, herbs, and spices.
Children also learn about the power of vitamins and minerals from natural, colorful, and healthy food.
How We Eat Board Book
What does healthy eating look like? With real photos, this board book shows that breastfeeding, pumping, bottle feeding, tube feeding, forks, spoons, utensils, and using hands are all healthy ways children can eat. A wonderful book for babies and toddlers!
Best books about healthy eating for kids
Children learn so much from the stories they love! These tasty tales can spark curiosity and conversations about common eating situations.
Every Night is Pizza Night
Like many kids, Pipo loves pizza and wants to eat it daily. Her neighbors challenge her to test whether pizza is the best food ever scientifically. Pipo takes on the challenge and goes on a culinary adventure. The journey develops into a beautiful sense of community as she explores food from different cultures.
Written by a chef, the end of the book concludes with a homemade pizza recipe.
I Will Never Eat a Tomato (Charlie and Lola)
Based on the popular Charlie and Lola cartoon, this book can help kids get curious about trying new foods. Lola insists that she will never eat carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. But with creative and silly convincing, Brother Charlie convinces Lola to give new foods a chance.
Our Food – A Healthy Serving of Science and Poems
This sweet picture book uses haiku poetry to teach kids about the science of food and healthy eating. It also encourages curiosity and answers common questions like “What’s the difference between white and brown bread?”
The colorful illustrations feature diverse children, and the science information follows Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate guidelines.
The Seven Silly Eaters
This light-hearted rhyming story explores a big family of “picky” eaters. Tired parents can relate to the chaos of the various demands as each new kid is born!
One kid wants milk, while another only craves applesauce. The mother caves to their wishes and makes separate meals for the seven children. How does she handle this?
Best books about healthy eating for tweens and teens
Older kids in elementary and middle school can delve into more detail about the history and science of food. Although the framework of your body is determined by DNA and genes, healthy eating makes a big difference, too.
Super Foods for Super Kids Cookbook: 50 Delicious (and Secretly Healthy) Recipes Kids Will Love to Make
Kids learn best with hands-on activities, and this cookbook is a wonderful way to invite kids to make their meals and snacks.
Recipes include superfoods like avocado, black beans, broccoli, kale, lentils, peas, tomatoes, and walnuts. Nutrition facts are also listed for each meal and snack.
Are You What You Eat? A Guide to What’s On Your Plate and Why!
This browsable nonfiction book will catch your eye with gorgeous graphics and food photography. Each page has different sections filled with interesting facts about nutrition, including how food works and what food does your body.
This book is perfect for kids to jump around at their own pace and absorb what they are curious about.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – The Secrets Behind What You Eat
From farms to factories to fast food joints, this thought-provoking book takes young readers behind the scenes of modern food production.
With photos, graphs, and other visuals, tweens and teens learn how food choices can impact personal and global health.