Sodium and your child

These are the references stored in KidoChoice's evidence library and used as the product-interpretation denominator for each age band:

• Under 12 months: 370 mg a day — Adequate Intake. Describes a typical adequate intake for babies 7–12 months. It is not a limit, and KidoChoice never uses it as a per-serving ceiling.
• 1–3 years: 1,200 mg a day — Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake. The intake above which reducing sodium is recommended for this age.
• 4–8 years: 1,500 mg a day — Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake. The intake above which reducing sodium is recommended for this age.
• 9–13 years: 1,800 mg a day — Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake. The intake above which reducing sodium is recommended for this age.
• 14–18 years: 2,300 mg a day — Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake. The intake above which reducing sodium is recommended for this age.

For children, KidoChoice uses the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction (CDRR) intake as the product-interpretation reference. A CDRR is the intake above which reducing intake is recommended — it is a benchmark for lowering intake, not a recommended daily amount and not a toxicological upper limit. That is why a serving is described as a share of the day, never as “how much of the limit is used up”.

Using the FDA 5%/20% convention adapted to pediatric references, a serving under 5% of the age-specific reference is low, 5–20% is a moderate share, 20% or more is high, and 40% or more is very high. A high share can move a product's recommendation down one level; a very high share lands it at “Best Occasionally”.

The same serving reads very differently for a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old — that is the point of the age-specific references, and why KidoChoice asks for your child's age before showing a recommendation.

KidoChoice never treats sodium as a standalone danger score. When you scan a product for a specific child's age, one serving is compared with the age-specific daily reference for that nutrient, and the rest of the product — what it is, what category it belongs to, its other nutrients and ingredients — is considered at the same time.

Per-serving amounts are placed in bands adapted from the FDA 5%/20% Daily Value convention and applied to pediatric reference intakes: under 5% of the day's reference is low, 5–20% is a moderate share, 20% or more is a high share, and 40% or more is very high. FDA did not create or validate this pediatric adaptation; it is KidoChoice's internal product-interpretation framework, and the regulated wording used on food labels (“good source of”, “high in”) is not applied to it.

A high share of a limit nutrient can move a product's recommendation one level, or to “Best Occasionally” when it is very high — never a warning, and never a conclusion about your child. These are general educational descriptions of the product, not individualized medical advice.

The values on this page come from KidoChoice's stored reference intakes and locked nutrition methodology, each tied to a specific published source:

• Age-specific sodium references (AI and CDRR): National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium (2019).
• Per-serving interpretation bands (5%/20%/40%): KidoChoice's internal product-interpretation framework, applying the FDA 5%/20% Daily Value convention to pediatric reference intakes.
• Related context: FDA, Voluntary Sodium Reduction Goals for Packaged Foods (Guidance for Industry, Edition 2, 2024) — about manufacturers' reformulation targets, not a child's daily reference.

How we weigh evidence day to day is described on How KidoChoice evaluates products, and what we do and do not publish is covered by our editorial policy.