The nutrient most parents forget about

We track calories, sugar, and protein like it's a full-time job. This one quietly falls off the list - and most kids are only getting about half of what they need.

Fibre doesn't get a mascot. It's not on the front of cereal boxes the way protein is, and nobody's kid asks for "more fibre, please" at dinner. But it's doing more behind the scenes than almost anything else on the plate - feeding gut bacteria, keeping digestion moving, and helping kids feel steady between meals instead of crashing and asking for a snack twenty minutes later.

Most kids fall well short of what pediatric guidelines recommend, and it's rarely because parents aren't trying. Fibre is just easy to miss - it's not flashy, and it's not in most of the foods kids actually gravitate toward.