Australian children should be consuming five times more omega-3 nutrients than they are now getting, a new report recommends.
The Scientific Consensus Report, authored by an Australian-led group of nutrition experts, said each day children were consuming around 50 to 100 milligrams of long chain omega-3 nutrients, mainly found in oily fish.
But the report suggests that for optimal health and brain development, children aged 14 and over should be eating 500 milligrams of the essential food component every day.
The report, released by health group The Omega-3 centre, cited a 2004 NSW study which surveyed 5,500 students aged five to 16 years and found a large proportion of the children consumed fish less than once a week.
This is a concern, the report's authors say, as omega-3s play an important role in bone health, brain growth, and development behaviour, learning and mood.
Director of the Omega-3 Centre and nutritionist Wendy Morgan said the nutrient should be increased in children's diet to benefit their overall health.
"Long chain omega-3s are essential nutrients for a number of health functions, and the report shows they are required by all cells in the body," Ms Morgan said.
"They have a role in brain growth and development and learning with emerging evidence of their role in bone health, asthma and mood."
Children could maximise their omega-3 intake simply by eating more seafood, Ms Morgan said.
"(Children) don't eat enough fish and seafood ... you can't really get omega-3 nutrients without eating seafood," she said.
The report also calls on the government to revise nutrition policy and take into account the key role of long chain omega-3s in the health and development of children.
"In this climate, where our children's health is at stake, the essential role omega-3 plays to ensure healthy physical and cognitive growth and development is just too important to ignore," Ms Morgan said.
Long chain omega-3 nutrients are also found in common foods including salmon, mussels, eggs, turkey, gemfish and beef.