A Unique Child: Nutrition - Play with your food

Telling young children, 'If you don't eat your greens, you can't have any pudding,' is not considered a desirable approach to getting them to eat fruit and vegetables.

'Bribing a child is not a good way to encourage them to eat healthily,' says Lucy Thomas, founder of the Taste for Life programme, supported by Organix. 'If a child becomes anxious and the experience is a negative one, their dislike for the food will increase.'

Every practitioner and parent will have experienced young children's resistance - and sometimes downright hostility - to fruit and vegetables with which they are unfamiliar. The Taste for Life programme aims to address this, removing the pressure for children to eat the food and instead encouraging them to explore the textures, colours, shapes and sensory nature of fresh produce.

The free resources and guidance are based on a concept developed by Ms Thomas for her training company Mange Tout, and she has published a book of the same name, aimed at giving parents techniques to use with their children. She came together with Organix on the back of its report (with the Soil Association) Georgie Porgie, Pudding and Pie: Exposing the truth about nursery school food, and has spent the past year developing the Taste for Life programme.

Materials are based on seasonal produce and highlight activities that encourage interaction. 'A lot of them are to do with growing, arts and crafts, songs and rhymes and physical activities, all of which link with the EYFS,' says Ms Thomas. 'For example, games with an orange will encourage children to explore the texture of the outer skin, divide the segments, squish it and hopefully give it a lick.

'The materials have been designed to make it easy for nursery teachers and practitioners to pick them off the shelf and weave them into the curriculum. They are colourful and there is a real energy to them.'

A trial of the programme at LEYF's Marsham Street Nursery in Westminster corroborates the user-friendliness of the package, and fits well with the charity's commitment to healthy eating and local sourcing of seasonal fruit and vegetables.

Manager Anjali Deb-Hukerjee says, 'There is a wide range of well thought-out learning experiences included, and it's all linked to the EYFS. The staff enjoy taking part and it gives them new ideas when introducing new food to children, particularly fussy eaters.'

Ms Deb-Hukerjee reports that an activity with carrots and courgettes went down particularly well. 'All our children from age two to four were able to participate and enjoyed exploring the teeth marks they made, and singing and dancing with the vegetables. We've also been making smoothies, cutting up the produce and taking photographs of it.

'There is also a lot of scope for continuing the good work at home, for example by passing on the lyrics of the songs to parents so they can sing them with their children, and encouraging them to use the resources in the parents' section of the website.'

Lucy Thomas hopes that by engaging with the programme, many settings will change the way young children eat for the better.

'This early stage is very important, with young tastebuds being formed for life. If children can enjoy healthy food at a young age, it will provide the foundation for healthy eating as adults.'

TASTE FOR LIFE

There are currently four EYFS-linked activity plans in the programme, based on strawberries, raspberries, peas and courgettes, which are free to download.

Each plan includes:

• - Touch activities, craft activities, songs and rhymes, active games and recipes
• - Suggestions for home activities to engage parents
• - Posters for your nursery detailing portion size for fruit and vegetables.

Four different activity sheets will be released for each season and the next one will follow in the autumn. A Leader's Guide explains how all the elements of the programme can be used. Go to www.tasteforlifenursery.com

RHYMING RAZZIES

Hand out three raspberries to each child and ask them to put them all on their fingers. Demonstrate what to do by saying this rhyme:

Three juicy raspberries on my finger tops

When one disappears, hear it go pop!

(Suck a raspberry off your finger with a popping sound and munch it all up)

(Count down accordingly)

Two juicy raspberries on my finger tops ...

One juicy raspberry on my finger top

When it disappears, hear it go POP!

FURTHER INFORMATION

• Mange Tout, www.mangetoutkids.com

• Caroline Walker Trust for nutritional guidelines for children under five, www.cwt.org.uk

• Better Nursery Food campaign, www.nurseryfood.org/the-campaign.html

• The London Early Years Foundation, www.leyf.org.uk

• www.organix.com