Why is there no number?

There is no figure here that can be given with confidence, so none is given. The normal range for questions like this is wide anyway — a few minutes with a paediatrician or dentist usually settles it.

What if my child’s age or country is not covered?

It will say plainly that this age is not covered, rather than borrow figures from another age or another country. How far a standard reaches is set by whoever published it, and stretching it gives a placing that is simply wrong.

intake / Nutrition

Nutrient reference intake lookup

Reference intakes for this age, nutrient by nutrient.

Against a reference

Energy

Fill in the fields above and the result appears here.

Gone when you close this. Stored nowhere.

Where this number comes from

Reference intakes retrieved by age, sex and nutrient, keeping the source’s value type and unit.

Step by step

One nutrient usually has several kinds of reference value — estimated average requirement, recommended intake, adequate intake, tolerable upper level — and they are not the same thing, so they cannot be folded into a single “recommended” figure. Type and unit are reproduced as the source gives them.

What this number cannot tell you

These are dietary reference intakes, not laboratory results. They cannot tell you whether a child is deficient — that is a blood concentration, an entirely different measurement. Nothing here calculates a supplement dose.

An example

Calcium for an 8-year-old boy: China sets an RNI of 1000 mg/day, while the UK sets 550 mg/day for the same age — two different things, so they are never averaged.

Common questions

Why is there no number?: There is no figure here that can be given with confidence, so none is given. The normal range for questions like this is wide anyway — a few minutes with a paediatrician or dentist usually settles it.
What if my child’s age or country is not covered?: It will say plainly that this age is not covered, rather than borrow figures from another age or another country. How far a standard reaches is set by whoever published it, and stretching it gives a placing that is simply wrong.

The others in the same group.

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