Nursery Management: Nutrition - Tap into good food guidelines

Nursery staff are 'crying out' for guidelines on food and drink for under-fives. Certainly, there are no official (ie governmental) guidelines, although plans for recommendations for all childcare settings in England are at last in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, excellent and comprehensive guidelines do exist, produced by the Caroline Walker Trust (CWT). Although the CWT guidelines are not 'official', they have an impeccable background and the advice is sound and practical. Almost any nursery would benefit from having a copy. Indeed, one would hope the promised official advice will be as good. It was the nutrient-based guidance for school meals produced by the CWT that the DfS adopted in 2005.

The CWT advice contains a short but invaluable child-nutrition course and sets out nutrient-based standards to indicate how much energy (calories) and other nutrients oneto four-year-olds should receive in childcare. The training materials include three one-week sample menus that meet those standards and suggest portion sizes. Of course, younger children will eat less, while older children will need, and want, larger portions, as will children who don't drink milk.

Meals and snacks should be spaced through the day, so no long gaps occur and children are not sent home ravenous. Allowing time for children to eat without being rushed is also important. Some European countries recommend a time of between 30 and 45 minutes for nursery meals.

Eating well for under-fives in childcare

CWT has published two A4-size booklets. The first, Practical and nutritional guidelines, has five chapters: Why the guidelines are needed, Infant nutrition, Nutrition for 1-4 year-olds and Encouraging children to eat well, which covers special diets, breakfast, food allergy, behaviour, food refusal, bringing food from home and food for special occasions. The final chapter, Nutritional guidelines and menu planning, deals with cost factors.

The other booklet, Training materials for people working with under-fives in child care, can be used either for individuals to work through at their own pace, or as the basis of a training day facilitated by a trainer, ideally a dietician or a registered public health nutritionist able to answer queries about feeding under-fives well.

It also contains a CD-ROM database of foods and recipes, extra menu plans, the training material text and a list of people who offer training in eating well for the under-fives.

Very usefully, CWT's CHEW (Children Eating Well) resource provides more practical support and can be used independently. It has sample menus for three weeks (including breakfast), portion sizes, all-round food-based guidance and pictures of all the foods. It includes a CD-ROM with the same information and from which photographs of the foods and meals can be made. Laminated cards with the photos are also available. The photographs are to help anyone planning or preparing food for one-to-fours, and also to use with children.

Addressing deficiencies

Some children eat an unvaried and deficient diet: too low in nutrients (notably, iron, zinc, vitamins A and C) and too high in sugars, salt and saturated fat. Increasing the amounts of meat, fish, nutritious carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables will boost children's intake of nutrients and thereby their health. (It will also squeeze out less desirable things.) Deficient and unvaried diets are usually very low in fruits and vegetables.

Each day, children should be offered foods from the four main food groups:

• Carbohydrates: eg bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, couscous

• Fruit and vegetables in variety

• Milk and other dairy foods

• Protein: meat, fish or alternatives such as beans/peas/lentils, eggs, tofu, nuts

CWT'S SUGGESTIONS FOR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOR MEALTIMES
1/2 to 1 heaped tablespoon of cooked vegetables, eg peas, carrots,
sweetcorn, cabbage, swede
1-2 broccoli/cauliflower florets
4-5 small green beans
Small handful salad leaves
1/4 to 1/2 sweet potato
1 small parsnip
Small slice squash or marrow
1 dessertspoon dried fruit
1-2 tablespoons stewed fruit
1-2 tablespoons canned fruit in juice
100ml-150ml 100% fruit juice (diluted)

CWT'S SUGGESTIONS FOR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES FOR SNACKS
1/2 medium carrot cut into sticks
2cm-3cm piece cucumber in sticks
1 small celery stick
4 cherry tomatoes or equivalent
1 ring red/orange/yellow pepper
1/2 apple, pear, peach
1/2 to 1 small banana
1/2 to 1 kiwi
1/4 to 1/2 large orange
1 small orange, clementine or satsuma
1 plum
1 small slice melon or pineapple
1 tablespoon berries, such as raspberries, brambles, fresh currants
4-6 strawberries
8-10 grapes

DRINKS

Drinking water should be available throughout the day and children should be encouraged to drink tap water if they are thirsty. Water quenches thirst, doesn't spoil appetite and doesn't damage teeth.

Staff might need to model drinking tap water to children and, sometimes, to parents.

Milk is a highly nutritious drink. Give whole milk to under-twos, then gradually introduce semi-skimmed - but only to children who are good eaters and who have a varied diet. Skimmed milk is too lacking in nutrients to be served as a main drink.

At mealtimes (only), consider serving pure, well-diluted fruit juice: its vitamin C will help iron absorption.

The sugars and acids in many drinks (squash, fizzy drinks etc) can damage teeth by facilitating decay and eroding tooth enamel and can limit appetite. They are definitely to be discouraged.

Quality food and drink, well prepared and well presented, should be the norm for nursery children.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The Caroline Walker Trust is a charity that aims to improve public health through good food. It has a range of publications, makes awards to people who have excelled in furthering the cause of better food and hosts an annual lecture on a pressing food issue (this year's is on vitamin D deficiency; London, 16 November).

RESOURCES:

• CHEW has guidance for feeding one- to four-year-olds. Meal ideas for the first year of life are in progress. Visit www.cwt-chew.org.uk

• Eating well for under-5s in child care, 2nd edition, CWT, 2006, Dr Helen Crawley: Practical and nutritional guidelines (£20); Training materials + CD-ROM (£20); Guidelines, Training materials + CD-ROM (£30). Eating well ... is for anyone involved with feeding under-fives, including agencies that contract, register, monitor or inspect nurseries, all nursery workers, children's trusts and centres, parents and guardians, MPs, MEPs, civil servants, writers and anyone concerned with the nutritional needs of under-fives.

• For more information on the trust, see www.cwt.org.uk.