NUTRI-TEEN Shakes Explained:

NUTRI-TEEN® is a food powder that has been specially designed to meet an active child's or young athletes requirements for key major nutrients. Active children are enjoying using NUTRI-TEEN® Shakes to support health, immunity, energy and recovery after sport. They may also use it as an alternative for some of their meals if access to whole foods is limited due to selective eating habits, or lack of time.

Typical times that NUTRI-TEEN® is used as a meal replacement is on the way to school after morning training, or before bed following a late evening session where they don’t wish to go to bed on a full stomach, or parents haven’t the time to cook a full meal. Parents are introducing NUTRI-TEEN® to help ensure their children are getting a good intake of all nutrients. Recent research shows that active children and youth athletes may have additional nutritional requirements due to frequent participation in intense training when coupled with poor eating habits.

NUTRI-TEEN®, similar to any food, may be consumed in relative amounts by active youths to include as part of a balanced, varied diet. Please refer to our Amounts of NUTRI-TEEN® in Different Age Groups guide at the bottom of this page. Parents of children under 4 years old should consult their doctor or relevant health care professional before allowing their child to consume. NUTRI-TEEN® is not suitable for babies or infants below / during weaning age. We always recommend a food-first approach wherever possible for all children under 18.

Optimal Nutrition for Adolescents

At YSN, we want to enforce correct eating habits for life so active or sporty children and adolescents should be encouraged to consume a balanced diet consisting of a variety of different foods including fibrous starchy foods like rice, potatoes, pasta, cereals; meat, fish or high-protein vegetarian alternatives; fruit and veg – at least 5 servings a day; and calcium-rich foods including dairy products or calcium-fortified alternatives to support bone growth, maintenance and development. Active children and teenagers should eat regularly to fuel growth and mental development as well as providing nutrition for high levels of activity due to participation in high level sport.

Good nutrition goes hand in hand with success in sport: regardless of participation in sport – all kids are encouraged to be active and include regular exercise, whether it be school sports, walking, cycling or playing out with friends. A healthy developing athlete is one who eats well and gets plenty of exercise.

As long as our children are eating sufficient foods from the above food groups, it’s OK for them to include treat foods, but these must not be consumed too often. It is essential to recognise that socialising is important for active children and youth athletes, and if their friends are enjoying treat foods, the odd snack as a reward should not be harmful.

Getting your active child to eat a good balanced diet can be an arduous challenge in a modern society where sweets, snacks and fast foods are advertised everywhere and buying them is both easy and affordable. Any parent will know what it’s like trying to get an adolescent to eat all their vegetables, and most teenagers seem to be either constantly eating junk or have decided to follow a faddy diet, leaving them with insufficient nutrition. This leaves our future stars open to deficiencies, which in turn will affect their overall health, development and ultimately their performance.

They may also be easily influenced by the attractive images posted by mass-market sports nutrition companies, who wrongly create the assertion that their product or service will make them bigger, faster, stronger or leaner. These products may contain elements that are not safe for young athletes, potentially affecting their health and even leave them open to anti-doping breaches. YSN stands for change in this area, ensuring that our product is both fit for purpose, and every batch is screened by Informed Sport so that you can have full confidence in every batch of NUTRI-TEEN®. We also take our production standards a step further by ensuring NUTRI-TEEN® is manufactured to HACCP standards in our GMP, ISO2200 and ISO9001 registered site.

NUTRI-TEEN® can be included as part of a healthy diet for active children in sport. NUTRI-TEEN® blended with milk or ice cold water is a sweet and great tasting drink to help refuel after participation in intense exercise. If you’re struggling to get your active child to eat healthy food and they insist on eating junk and not enough fruit and veg, then including NUTRI-TEEN® once a day will help provide some of the good-quality nutrition that they need.

Also, our great NUTRI-TEEN® recipes, such as NUTRI-TEEN® Rice Krispie Squares, can be a fun way for your active child to enjoy the shakes. You can also follow us via our social media profiles to get all of the NUTRI-TEEN® recipes.

Energy Requirements

A child’s energy requirements vary hugely, from less than 1,500 calories per day in children under 6 years of age to over 2,800 in older teenagers; the latter being higher than that of an average adult. If a child is a full-time athlete, then these requirements can be greater, and some kids are just not big eaters, so you need to look at nutritionally sound ways of obtaining sustenance without encouraging too much junk for the sake of calories. Using NUTRI-TEEN® after training or competition is a great way of doing this.

Energy requirements (calories per day) for children & adolescents(1)

Age	7 - 10	11 - 14	15 - 18
Males	1649-2032	2127-2629	2820-3155
Females	1482-1936	2032-2342	2390-2462

 

Macronutrient Requirements

Protein requirements increase with age from 19.7g per day in 4 to 6-year-olds and 28.3g in 7- to 10-year-olds to 0.75g per kg body weight per day in children and adolescents over 10 years and into adulthood. These recommendations cover little more than basic requirements, and typical intakes from a varied diet are considerably more.  Indeed, active adolescents who partake in regular exercise benefit from a higher intake. 50g NUTRI-TEEN® (about 1 scoop) provides over 21g of protein, so it’s a significant contributor to protein intake, especially for fussy eaters or vegetarian athletes.

Protein requirements for children & adolescents (1,2)

Age	7 - 10	11 - Adult
Amount	28.3g/day	0.75g/kg bodyweight

 

Recommendations state that carbohydrate intake should be 40-50% of total energy intake, therefore the amount of carbs kids eat should be based on their calorie requirements. The bulk of carbohydrate intake should be from fibrous starchy sources like potatoes, rice, pasta, cereals, wholemeal or granary bread and other whole grains, rather than from added sugars. The goal is for sugar intake to be less than 5% of total energy. NUTRI-TEEN® is low in sugars, 2% of total energy, and based on oats: a fibrous source of starch.

Fat intake advice is also based on energy requirements and should be no more than 35% of total intake. Like adults, children and adolescents are encouraged to consume more of certain types of fats including omega-3 polyunsaturates and monounsaturates. NUTRI-TEEN® provides a good percentage of its energy from fat or MCTs (Medium Chain Triglycerides) and has an ideal fatty acid profile containing Omega 3 and 6.

Fibre Intake

Most kids don’t consume enough fibre. Getting children and adolescents to eat more fruit and veg or fibrous carbohydrate foods can be a difficult task that leaves many parents frustrated. Not only are these foods rich in fibre, but they also contain many essential vitamins and minerals. Lack of fibre in kids can lead to bowel problems and could be a contributing factor in inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and colitis – both of which occur most commonly in adolescents and young adulthood.

NUTRI-TEEN® contains fibre with 50g providing 1.3g; a small contribution to the 20g per day recommended for younger children and the 25-30g per day for adolescents.

Salt Intake

A lot of junk and convenience foods are high in salt, and some of this is ‘hidden salt’ in not-so-obvious foods. Consequently, like adults, children are encouraged to reduce their salt intake. Suggested upper intakes are 3g per day for 4- 6-year-olds, 5g per day for 7- 10-year-olds and 6g per day for over-11s. NUTRI-TEEN® is very low in salt, one 50g scoop would contribute around 0.5g whilst providing around 199 calories.

Vitamin & Mineral Intakes

The table below shows the recommended intakes of vitamins and minerals (for those that recommended intake figures exist) for boys and girls of different ages, as well as how much of each micronutrient is provided by one scoop of NUTRI-TEEN®. Requirements increase with age, with the amounts in adolescents being the same as in adults, and for many micronutrients, the adolescent requirements are actually higher than for adults. For instance, calcium is higher because these are the bone-building years, and a good intake from 11 years of age through until adulthood may actually help prevent the onset of osteoporosis later in life; indeed, although the adult requirements are the same for males and females (800mg per day) females may actually require higher amounts right up to their late 20s. The calcium amount in NUTRI-TEEN® is set at 773mg (97% of daily RI) per day, more than covering the amount required for adolescents.

From menarche (the onset of menstruation), adolescent and adult females have a higher requirement for iron than males, and even the requirement of 14.8mg per day may not even be enough for females who have particularly large menstrual bleeds. A 50g scoop of NUTRI-TEEN® after sport may assist by providing iron at 11.7mg (84% of daily RI).

Suggested daily requirements for boys for vitamins and minerals for which there are figures(1) compared to how much of each is on one scoop of NUTRI-TEEN®:

	4-6	7-10	11-14	15-18	Per 50g scoop
Vitamin D (mcg)	10	10	10	10	4.2
Vitamin C (mg)	30	30	35	40	64
Thiamine (mg)	0.7	0.7	0.9	1.1	0.9
Riboflavin (mg)	0.8	1	1.2	1.3	1.2
Niacin (mgNE)	11	12	15	18	13.4
Vitamin B6 (mg)	0.9	1	1.2	1.5	1.2
Folate (mcg)	100	150	200	200	168
Vitamin B12 (mcg)	0.8	1	1.2	1.5	1.5
Potassium (mg)	1100	2000	3100	3500	714
Calcium (mg)	450	550	1000	1000	773
Phosphorus (mg)	350	450	775	775	504
Magnesium (mg)	120	200	280	300	300
Iron (mg)	6.1	8.7	11.3	11.3	11.7
Zinc (mg)	6.5	7	9	9.5	8

 

Suggested daily requirements for girls for vitamins and minerals for which there are figures(1) compared to how much of each is on one scoop of NUTRI-TEEN®:

	4-6	7-10	11-14	15-18	Per 50g scoop
Vitamin D (mcg)	10	10	10	10	4.2
Vitamin C (mg)	30	30	35	40	64
Thiamine (mg)	0.7	0.7	0.7	0.8	0.9
Riboflavin (mg)	0.8	1.0	1.1	1.1	1.2
Niacin (mgNE)	11	12	12	14	13.4
Vitamin B6 (mg)	0.9	1.0	1.0	1.2	1.2
Folate (mcg)	100	150	200	200	168
Vitamin B12 (mcg)	0.8	1.0	1.2	1.5	1.5
Potassium (mg)	1100	2000	3100	3500	714
Calcium (mg)	450	550	800	800	773
Phosphorus (mg)	350	450	625	625	504
Magnesium (mg)	120	200	280	300	300
Iron (mg)	6.1	8.7	14.8	14.8	11.7
Zinc (mg)	6.5	7.0	9.0	7.0	8

 

For youth athletes, food intake isn’t varied and is often high in empty calorie foods, i.e. foods that contain calories, but little in the way of micronutrients. By including NUTRI-TEEN®, you can be sure that a good contribution of requirements for all vitamins and minerals is being met. Also, as NUTRI-TEEN® is based on natural ingredients and topped up with a vitamin and mineral blend, by including it as part of a healthy balanced diet in your youth athlete, you need not be concerned about excess consumption of any nutrient if intake is at recommended amounts.

Amounts of NUTRI-TEEN® in Different Age Groups

As upper safe limits for vitamins and minerals in children haven’t been evaluated, we suggest youth athletes consume NUTRI-TEEN® up to around the recommended requirement levels for their age which is a maximum of 1 scoop per day after intense exercise or as a meal replacement on low activity days. The following will give you a guide as to how much NUTRI-TEEN® a youth athlete can include as part of a varied diet, whilst encouraging them to eat good wholesome foods every day. If your teen has health issues, we recommend you consult your doctor or relevant clinical professional before allowing them to consume NUTRI-TEEN®.

Please note the below values are present as guidelines only, and that is important that your kids do not exceed the stated daily recommended amounts.

 

Children Under 4
NUTRI-TEEN® is not suitable for babies or infants below or during weaning age. Parents of children under 4 years old should consult their doctor or relevant health care professional before allowing their child to consume NUTRI-TEEN®.

4- to 6-Year-Olds

We always advocate a food first approach for younger participants. The aim here being to set nutritional foundations for life, but we understand selective eating can sometime be an issue. If absolutely necessary, Children of 4 to 6 years of age may include up to ¼ of a scoop (about 12.5g) NUTRI-TEEN® per day. This is around one quarter of their daily nutrient requirements and can be a great way to ensure your child is getting a range of vitamins and minerals in. Always consult a qualified medical practitioner first if you are unsure about introducing NUTRI-TEEN® into their diet.

7- to 10-Year-Olds
7- to 10-year-olds can enjoy ½ a scoop (about 25g) of NUTRI-TEEN® per day, which would help them meet their daily nutrition needs to counter selective eating habits. NUTRI-TEEN® is ideal for fussy kids who won’t eat enough fruit and veg to support high levels of participation in sport. Again, athletes within this age group should be encouraged to meet their daily recommended intake via whole foods first.

11- to 13-Year-Olds
Young adolescents can include around ¾ of 1 scoop (about 37.5g) of NUTRI-TEEN® a day. At this growth spurt age, energy requirements are high, especially in active athletic kids; NUTRI-TEEN® provides a good contribution of protein, energy and vitamins for this age group.

13- to 18+-Year-Olds
Older adolescents have, in most cases, nutritional requirements greater than those of adults due to the fact that they’re growing, they’re often as physically active as professional athletes and have to balance this against studying at school or college. This age group can enjoy 1 full scoop of NUTRI-TEEN® (50g) freely as part of a balanced, varied diet after intense sport or on low activity days.

 

 

References

(1) British Nutrition Foundation. Nutrition Requirements. 2016. https://www.nutrition.org.uk/attachments/article/261/Nutrition%20Requirements_Revised%20Oct%202016.pdf

(2) HMSO 1991. Dietary Reference Values for Food Energy and Nutrients for the United Kingdom.