Avocado and Chicken Won't Make Your Child Grow. This Will

Written by children's dietitian Nishti 

If your child isn't gaining weight, you've probably been told to add more protein and fat. Here's why protein and fat alone won't make your child grow and what actually will.

In my years of clinical practice working with children with and without food allergies who aren't gaining weight, I've noticed a pattern that rarely gets discussed.

Parents come to me having done everything "right." They've added more fat and protein. They've tried supplements. They've stressed over every meal. And yet the child still isn't growing.

When I look at what's actually on the plate, the answer is almost always the same: the balance of carbohydrates to fat and protein is all wrong.

As a dietitian for over 15 years, I don't see this spoken about enough. We are great at telling parents to add more fat to their children's meals — but it's so much more than that.

The hormone nobody talks about

When your child eats carbohydrates, their blood sugar rises. The body responds by releasing insulin. And insulin isn't just about blood sugar — it's one of the most powerful anabolic hormones in the body. That means it's a building hormone. It tells cells to absorb nutrients, build tissue, and gain weight.

No carbohydrate → no insulin spike → no anabolic signal.

Without that insulin signal, protein and fat don't get used for building. Protein gets burned for energy instead. So all that extra chicken? Gone. Used as fuel. Not a single gram of it went towards helping your child grow. And all that avocado? Useful — but without carbohydrate to trigger the insulin response first, it can't do the job you're hoping it will.

This is well-established physiology and yet in my clinical experience, it's almost never explained to parents of children with poor weight gain. The missing piece on the plate is almost always carbohydrate.

What a typical "healthy" plate looks like and what's wrong with it

We see this all the time in clinic:

What parents serve:

• Grilled chicken breast
• Steamed broccoli
• Cucumber slices
• Fruit

It looks healthy. It is healthy. But there is no meaningful carbohydrate on that plate. The insulin signal never fires. The body never gets the message to grow.

What it should look like:

• Chicken thigh or drumstick (more fat and iron)
• Steamed or grilled broccoli with olive oil
• A large portion of rice, pasta, yam, or another carbohydrate
• A drizzle of olive oil over the finished meal

Same effort. Completely different outcome.

At every meal, ask yourself this one question

Where is the carbohydrate on this plate?

If you can't point to it — rice, pasta, potato, bread, yam, plantain, oats, chapati, fufu, injera — the meal is missing its most important growth ingredient. Add it before you add anything else.

And yes, fruit is a carbohydrate but what we are looking for is the starchy carbohydrates listed above. These are the ones that drive a meaningful insulin response and create the anabolic environment your child needs to grow.

Carbohydrates your child can eat (from every food culture)

Every food culture in the world has carbohydrate-rich staples. Whatever your family eats, the answer is already in your kitchen.

South Asian families: rice, chapati, roti, dhal with rice

West and Central African families: fufu, pounded yam, eba, cassava, plantain, rice

East African families: injera, rice, ugali

Caribbean families: rice, plantain, cassava, sweet potato, yuca

Latin American families: corn tortillas, rice, cassava, plantain, sweet potato

East and Southeast Asian families: rice, rice noodles, glass noodles

All families: potato, sweet potato, oats, allergen-free pasta, allergen-free bread, banana, mango

If your family's traditional food is built around rice, yam, chapati, or plantain — that is not something to change. Those staples are your biggest asset. Keep them central. Build every meal around them.

A few other things that make a real difference

It's the combination of food groups in the right order that matters. Once you've got carbohydrate on the plate, the evidence is clear that these strategies support weight gain in children:

• Olive oil or avocado oil — drizzle over everything. Rice, pasta, yam, stews. Around 120 calories per tablespoon.
• Full-fat coconut milk — use instead of water in rice, curries, stews, and porridge. Adds richness and calories in a way that's familiar across many cuisines.
• Nut or seed butter — if tolerated, stir into porridge or spread on toast. Sunflower seed butter is a good nut-free option.
• Avocado — still a great addition, just not as a replacement for carbohydrate. Add it alongside rice or toast, not instead of them.
• Structure mealtimes — three meals, two snacks, consistent times, 20–30 minutes at the table. Research consistently shows that structured mealtimes produce better weight gain than grazing throughout the day.

What about drinks?

This one surprises a lot of parents. Children who drink large amounts of milk, juice, or water before meals often arrive at the table with no appetite. The drinks fill them up before the food even gets a chance.

Depending on your child's age and developmental stage, consider how much milk your child is having at mealtimes. As solids become more important, large milk feeds before meals can work against weight gain by leaving no room for food. Milk dropping is a normal and healthy part of development, it's a sign that solid food is taking its rightful place at the centre of your child's nutrition.

Offer drinks after meals, not before.

When to get extra support

If you've been working on this for four to six weeks and your child still isn't gaining weight, please don't struggle on alone. Ask your GP for a referral to a paediatric dietitian. They can calculate exactly how many calories your child needs and recommend a supplement if food alone isn't enough.

Also ask for a referral if your child:

• Has dropped across two or more centile lines
• Is losing weight rather than just growing slowly
• Has ongoing tummy symptoms that haven't been explained
• Has a lot of anxiety around food and eating

The bottom line

The research on weight gain in children is clear: calorie-dense foods, structured mealtimes, and the right support make a real difference. But in my clinical experience, the piece that's missing from most conversations and most plates is carbohydrate.

You don't need to overhaul everything your child eats. You need to look at every meal and ask: is there a carbohydrate on this plate?

If the answer is yes, great. Build on it.

If the answer is no, that's where to start. Not with more chicken. Not with more avocado. With carbohydrates. 

Need help? Contact us here and apply to work with our team.