How to encourage parents and carers to become involved in healthy eating practices

A healthy balanced diet is essential to make sure that children get all the nutrients they need for optimal growth, development and overall wellbeing.

Healthy eating in the early years lays the foundations for physical, cognitive and emotional wellbeing. It fuels growth, supports brain development and reduces the risk of chronic diseases.

Our interactions with food are a daily routine. Regardless of where we are, or what we are doing, we need to eat. Early education and care provisions are regulated to ensure that, whilst at nursery, meals are nutritious within correct proportions and are safely prepared for young children to consume. But, for families at home, it can be difficult to access the knowledge and support to ensure that these needs are met at home, too. Providing consistent messaging both at home and within the setting can support healthy eating habits for the children and the whole family.

This learning workout highlights the vital importance of working in partnership with parents and offers tips and ideas of how to get families involved in promoting health eating practices.

A healthy diet is essential for our bodies and our minds. This is true for all of us throughout our lives, but it is particularly important for ensuring the healthy growth and development of young children who are building their bodies at an exponential rate. In their early years, children develop tastes and habits that can last a lifetime, cultivating initial attitudes towards food, eating habits and understanding nutrition. This window is a crucial time to guide them in a healthy direction for a life of balanced choices.

However, the stark reality is, that our children may become the least healthy population in living memory. Obesity rates have continued to soar, with over one quarter of four and five-year-olds now overweight or obese by the time they start school, and children in the most deprived areas of the country are more than twice as likely to be obese. start school, and children in the most deprived areas of the country are more than twice as likely to be obese.

Recent studies have also shown that poor nutrition is linked to several health conditions including:

type II diabetes, which usually appears in adulthood
poor dental health in many young children
more than one in four young children are at risk of iron deficiency linked to slower cognitive development.

As highlighted with obesity rates, child poverty and deprivation have a strong impact on the diet and nutrition of young children. In recent years, changes in children’s diets have affected their nutrient intakes with some children eating foods that are low in energy, iron and vitamin A, and high in saturated fat, sugars and salt. In addition, many young children eat fewer than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Food security is a substantial issue for many families and cheaper alternatives are often the only viable source of calories. Healthier foods are often more expensive than their cheaper alternatives, many of which are processed foods with little nutritional value.

Our responsibility as early education and care professionals is to provide a nutritious diet for children and to enable them to develop a positive relationship with food. We know that children benefit when staff, parents and carers work together to share information about nutrition and eating healthily in the setting and at home.

10 top tips to get parents, carers and families involved in promoting health eating practices

Parents and carers are important role models for their children’s food choices, but it can be difficult for parents to access the right knowledge and practical advice. Here are some simple ideas that you can implement to support parents and carers:

Display menus of setting meals so parents and carers are aware of the variety of foods offered to their children. This will enable them to see the components of a well-balanced meal or snack and give an insight into the variety of tastes and textures their child is exposed to whilst in your care. Share recipes that children enjoy, so that parents can replicate them at home.
Have conversations about food. Exchange information about the child’s food preferences as well as sharing any necessary updates on any foods which are new to the child.
When communicating home, ensure messaging is consistent and that staff feel confident in their knowledge of what constitutes healthy eating. Plan a workshop or invite the team to put together a display for parents that explains your setting’s approach to promoting healthy eating to ensure messages are clear.
Share your settings’ healthy eating policy with families in an accessible format. This will help families understand the importance of good nutrition and its impact on future health outcomes and will help families to recognise what you're doing as a setting to support these.
As part of a new child’s induction, talk with parents and carers about the food preparation process at your setting. If food is sourced externally, give a detailed explanation of why and how this is done. Share with them how food and eating is valued as a part of the day through the wider routine.
Involve parents in healthy eating projects, such as by creating a shared nursery recipe book for families. Understanding where food comes from is an important aspect of understanding food. Create opportunities for growing plants at setting and engage those at home by encouraging children to take vegetables home to use.
Organise cooking workshops where families can cook together, or information sessions to demonstrate healthy food options and ‘healthy swaps’ to make marginal gains in meals to make them healthier.
Provide parents and carers with practical information that they can use at home. This could include recipe cards, or online platforms that offer healthy meal ideas and cooking tips. Resources like Healthier Families are a great way to introduce these ideas.
Devise a healthy eating booklet which will inform families about the setting’s approach to healthy eating, for example how children get involved in growing, cooking or serving food during their time in setting.
Signpost parents and carers to appropriate evidence-based healthy eating advice and resources across the whole of the early years, including bottle and breastfeeding, weaning, and healthy eating into toddlerhood. Services, such as the breastfeeding network, health visitors, dietitians, registered nutritionists and dentists also provide a vast range of support for more specialised issues and advice.

Conclusion

We know that the foundations of lifelong wellbeing are built in early childhood. The evidence strongly suggests that empowering children and their families to establish healthy eating habits in the early years, not only supports growth and development but can prevent future health problems and help to tackle current health inequalities.

Reflection

Sugar is a significant factor contributing to childhood obesity, tooth decay and serious health conditions throughout childhood and into adult life.

Healthier Families have a useful sugar calculator designed to highlight the amount of sugar in common foods. Take a look and explore the sugar in common treats for a better insight into the role of sugar in a child’s diet.

https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/food-facts/sugar-calculator/