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5.3
Feeding Preschool Children in
Childcare Settings
Summary
●● Food intake of under-fives may change guidance documents for them to use to
on entering nursery or childcare develop food policies.
settings.
●● Childcare settings can teach healthy eating
●● Childcare settings are not required to adopt habits to children who do not encounter a
any nutritional standards but there are several healthy diet in their home.
Opportunities and Challenges for For other children, particularly very faddy or
Children Eating in Childcare selective eaters, being offered only unfamiliar
Settings foods in an unfamiliar environment will be a
disadvantage for them. Some will eat very little and
When young children begin nursery or attend others may refuse new foods altogether. They need
daycare it is an opportunity for them to encounter a time to become more familiar with the new
wider range of foods and different ways of having environment and the foods served. They may need
foods prepared and presented. For some children to watch the other children eating a snack or a meal
this will be a positive opportunity as they will see a several times before they are prepared to try it.
large peer group eating and will be able to watch and With time, as they become familiar with the foods
copy their behaviour and may have more control served there and as they watch the other children
over feeding themselves than they do at home. and staff eating the foods, they will gradually gain
the confidence to try the foods and then begin to
Toddlers who do not eat well at home may eat learn to like them.
much better at nursery. They may have had negative
experiences around eating at home and prefer the Feeding very selective eaters who will only eat a
eating environment at nursery. Toddlers who eat narrow range of foods requires a management plan
better at nursery may include: agreed between the childcare setting and the
parents. A food that they will eat must be offered at
●● those who have often been fed on their own – if each meal so that they are able to join in the
they see very few people eating different foods at mealtime, sit with the other children and eat
home they may try new foods at nursery where something. This might be a food the childcare
they see a large group of other toddlers eating setting can provide, such as bread or cooked pasta,
different foods but it may have to be food that the parents send in
from home (e.g. a marmite sandwich). While eating
●● those who have experienced some of the negative his or her familiar food the toddler can also be
actions of parents as described in Chapter 5.2; offered the foods the other children are eating.
for example they may have been pressured to eat However, undue pressure put on a very selective
more than they wanted to.
