Overview

Early childhood programs are responsible for making sure children have nourishing, clean, safe, and developmentally appropriate food as well as clean drinking water. Food is essential in any early care and education setting to provide energy and nutrients needed during the critical period of growth and development. Meals and snacks should be relaxed and pleasant to support healthy digestion and positive social behavior.

Unfortunately, NAEYC reports that roughly 4 million children under age twelve go hungry each day. Research demonstrates that children who are in need of adequate nutrition are more likely to have health problems and to have difficulty in school. There are several programs such as Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACF) that help early childhood programs pay for meals and snacks.

The Administrator’s Role

As an administrator, you need the knowledge and skills to support nutrition and food service in the early childhood program.  The competencies  include:

• Executing nutritional and health requirements for food service that support children from diverse cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds
• Understanding the biological, environmental, cultural, and social influences affecting
• children’s growth and development from prenatal through early adolescence
• Implementing practices that promote good nutrition, dental health, and physical health of infants-toddlers, preschool, and kindergarten children
• Modeling healthful lifestyle choices

You may be familiar with these topics from previous coursework.  However, I wonder if more education on the topic of nutrition and food service is needed.  In supervising students, I have observed ineffective practices. Are you seeing?

• Not enough food is available to satisfy children.
• Adults determine how much food is placed on children’s plates.
• Adults insist that children eat more or less than they want.
• Children are required to eat all the food on their plates.
• Adults talk negatively about children’s eating characteristics to colleagues or families, within hearing range of children.
• Adults compare children’s behaviors and characteristics as a strategy to get children to eat.
• Mealtime is rushed.
• Children have few choices such as: portion sizes are pre-determined, or children have to eat all the food on their plates.
• Adults are unavailable to model eating and mealtime skills.
• Adults serve all foods onto children’s plates.
• Children’s sole utensil is either a spoon or a fork.
• Children are served only finger foods.
• Most of the adults’ responses are brief, including comments such as, “Oh, really,” or “Uh Uh.”
• Children are asked to be silent at meals.
• Nearly all of the adults’ comments are directive and/or corrective.
• Adults discourage conversation by hurrying children’s comments and responses.
• Adults sometimes leave the room during part of the mealtime.
• Adults offer little or no assistance to children.
• Adults over-help children to the point of interfering with their independence and learning.

As you read the resources, look for solutions to the ineffective practices listed above.

 What aspects of Nutrition and Food Service do I look at?

Begin to notice how your program supports nutrition and food service.  How do they comply with the state regulations or legal obligations which is on one side of the bridge?  In Massachusetts program are required to comply with the following regulations from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care. (2010). Look at 7:12 Nutrition and Food Service. I summarized the regulations which include:

(1) The program must implement a nutrition program that meets the U.S.D.A. guidelines for all children.

(2) All educators must receive basic training in:

(a) USDA nutrition requirements

(b) food choking hazards. 

(3) Educators must follow parents’ or physicians’ orders in the preparation & feeding of special diets to children.

(4) Educators must follow the directions of the parents and /or the child’s physician regarding any food allergies of a child.

(5) Vitamin Supplements. (Much more here)

(6) The program must have a method of providing nutritious meals and snacks to children whose parents fail to send meals and/or snacks from home.

(7) If the program provides meals and snacks for children:

(a) Serve a variety of nutritious foods;

(b) Prepared and served in a safe and sanitary manner;

(c) Foods are not served beyond their recommended dates of use;

(d) Store all food in clean, covered containers;

(e) Pproperly wash and sanitize all bottles, eating utensils, drinking utensils, dishes, and preparation utensils after each use;

(f) Make available to parents on request written menus, including snacks, for each week; 

(g) Keep previous menus on file for one year.

(8) The program must provide refrigeration and storage for food at not less than 32° F, nor more than 40° F for all food requiring refrigeration. Thermometers must be maintained in all refrigerators.

(9) Eating and drinking utensils must be free from defects, cracks and chips and appropriate to the ages and needs of the children, including children with disabilities..

(10) Meal schedules must be appropriate to the ages of the children served. (Much more here)

(11) During meal and snack times educators must:

(a) be present interacting with and assisting children;

(b) allow children to eat at a reasonable, leisurely rate;

(c) encourage children to serve themselves, when appropriate;

(d) ensure that each child receives an adequate amount and variety of food;

(e) help children with disabilities to participate in meal and snack times with their peers;

(f) encourage children to eat a well-balanced diet;

(g) offer alternative activities for children who have finished their snack or meal.

(12) Educators must dispose of, or return to the parent, milk, formula or food unfinished by a child, as directed by the parent.

(13) Provide a source of sanitary drinking water located in or convenient to rooms occupied by children.

(14) Offer water to children at frequent intervals and upon request by children.

(15) Additional Requirements for Small Group and School Age and Large Group and School Age Child Care.

(a) Designate one person to be responsible for the food program.

(b) If the program provides food prepared on-site, the program must have a Food Service permit.

(c) If the program provides food that is prepared off-site, the food must be prepared at a facility that has a Food Service permit and must be transported to the program in appropriate sanitary containers and at appropriate temperatures.

(d) If parents provide meals or snacks for children, the program must provide to parents, in writing at the time of admission, a list of nutritious items that may be part of a lunch or snack. The program must support parent choice regarding meals to the extent that such choice does not adversely affect a child’s health.

Now let’s examine best practices as defined by the USDA and Head Start which are the “other side of the bridge”.  I encourage to read the 2015 article Family Style Meals for an example of best practices.

Thinking of your program, how will you begin the journey across the bridge?  Read Area 8 and Appendix E of  the Early Childhood Program Standards to guide you across.

The Program Standards checklist covers topics such as frequency of meals and snacks, types of foods to serve or to suggest to families to provide, communication about feeding to families, handling food allergies and preferences, food safety, and mealtime supervision.

When you observe and participate in meals and snacks, what have you seen in terms of variety?  Are children eating foods high in fat, sugar, and salt? What is healthy?

For food service practices, are you observing NAEYC “best practices by sitting, eating with children, & engaging children in conversation?  If the program provides food, do you serve food in containers holding multiple portions so that children serve themselves?

Other indicators of effective and best practices are described by the University of Idaho (2005) in the  Building Mealtime Environments and Relationships An Inventory for Feeding Young Children in Group Settings.  The inventory is a rating scale with items to look for to determine best practices. For example, are you seeing:

• An ideal adult to child ratio of 1:4 at each table for toddlers and 1:6 at each table for preschoolers maintained during the mealtime
• Adults present during the entire meal
• Tables washed with soap and water and sanitized with non-toxic sanitizing
• solution before and after the meal
• Adults and children wash hands before and after the meal
• Staff and children use warm, running water, soap, and paper towels for handwashing
• Each child has a plate or bowl for food to be placed on? (Eating from plates helps reduce contamination. Though food may be put on sanitized highchair trays for infants, plates should be provided for older infants and toddlers.)
• Children have adequate space to pass, serve, and eat.
• Adults ensure children use serving utensils for serving only.
• Food and tableware are removed immediately if they become contaminated.
• Spills are cleaned up immediately.
• Floors are swept and mopped during and after the meal to remove spills or crumbs.
• Adults sit down to supervise children before food is passed.
• Food is prepared, presented, or modified to avoid choking hazards that are common to the youngest child in the group.
• Adults are always within sight, sound, and physical response range to children.
• Adults stay with children throughout the meal.
• Adults give directions to prevent choking (i.e., keep all four chair legs on the floor, avoid talking or laughing with food in mouth, take small bites, and finish chewing before leaving the table).
• Adults provide assistance to children who gag or choke.
• Throughout the mealtime, at least one adult is in the room who is CPR and First Aid certified.

Choking is a special hazard for young children who are just developing swallowing and chewing skills. Choking on food can be fatal to children. Adults must offer mealtime settings that minimize choking hazards. Common choking hazards for young children are: raw carrots, raisins and other dried fruit, hot dogs (whole or or cut into rounds), whole grapes, chunks of meat, popcorn, pretzels and chips, raw apples, peanuts and other whole nuts, and chunks of peanut butter.

• Enough food is available to satisfy individual children’s hunger needs.
• Adults support children as they learn how to choose portion sizes to match how much they can eat.
• Children are not required to eat either a set amount of food, or a particular food.
• Children are not required to try or taste a food they refuse.
• Adults acknowledge children’s differences and preferences for food, but do not compare children’s eating characteristics.
• Food is offered at least every three hours so that children’s hunger does not overwhelm their ability to self-regulate food intake.
• Food is prepared and presented so that children can eat independently.
• Adults respond calmly and non-punitively to spills and imprecise motor movements during eating and serving.
• Adults observe, assess, and act on the variations in the flow of conversations (e.g., adding vocabulary, asking open-ended questions, filling in information).
• Adults validate children’s feelings and ideas, and help children process those
• thoughts, feelings, or ideas.
• Adults extend children’s conversations by adding descriptive and action words.
• Mealtime routines are designed to guide children’s skills (e.g., taking turns, learning about new foods, and practicing spearing, spreading, serving, and pouring).
• Enough staff are available to facilitate safe, smooth post-meal transitions such as toileting and transitioning to nap or other activities.
• Adults accept children’s reactions to foods.
• To assure that adults’ attention is on children’s mealtime needs, adults have a separate meal break for their actual meal, though they eat a small meal with the children.

Collecting Evidence for Nutrition and Food Service

To write the draft on health and safety; you will need evidence to compare written policies and procedures with actual practice.  Evidence may include:

 Summary

Challenges

Contemporary Issues Discussion Grading Rubric

Adapted from Assessing Outcomes and Improving Achievement: Tips and tools for Using Rubrics, edited by Terrel L. Rhodes. Copyright 2010 by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.”