Work Matters: Training: Nutrition - Food for thought

Health and well-being, including safe and healthy eating, is a vital requirement of the EYFS.

Many adult eating patterns have their roots in childhood, and nurseries can help lay the foundations for healthy eating by providing healthy food as a model. This can't just be by instinct, though - it has to be supported by training and ongoing monitoring of daily practice.

The key food concerns in nurseries are two-fold - first, to ensure that the food provided is as healthy as it can possibly be, and second, to ensure that the food provided is as safe as it can possibly be.

Many childcare courses don't include teaching on diet and healthy eating, or on planning and preparing food. It is therefore unsurprising that nursery staff may struggle with providing food for their charges, or may fall into bad habits. As a result, the children, although generally fed adequately, may not get the best diet possible, or may not have the opportunity to learn all they can about healthy food.

Acorn Childcare Training created its one-day course, Healthy Eating for the Under-Fives, to teach nursery staff about the importance of healthy eating and planning menus with a good variety of food, as well as providing down-to-earth and practical tips on how to put it all into practice. The course covers all aspects of healthy eating, beginning with the different nutritional requirements of babies, toddlers and small children.

One example is how children's diets should include a higher proportion of (healthy) fats than adults' should. Children also have smaller stomachs than adults do, so early years staff should plan menus to provide the right proportions of nutrients in a number of smaller meals and snacks spread throughout the day. These should neither overload them with food within too short a space of time, or allow them to go hungry over too long a period, particularly taking into account the time they may eat in the evening after being collected by a parent or carer.

The day also considers special diets, including those with a cultural or religious background, and looks at how these can be integrated into the other meals at the nursery without children missing out on vital nutrients. It also covers other special diets, including those for children with food allergies and intolerances.

Overall, the course provides space for practical exercises and discussion. The tutors, who are all qualified and experienced in the field, are always willing to answer specific questions.

Ensuring safe preparation

People who prepare and serve food, especially to children, have a great responsibility to make sure that the food is safe. Food that has not been prepared to strict health and safety standards - which is kept warm for too long, for example - may just not taste as good, or may simply have lost some of its important nutrients. In extreme cases, lack of knowledge about preparing, storing, serving and reheating food can lead to illness among both staff and children.

Acorn Childcare Training has two courses on Food Safety in Catering, both CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) certified, at level 1 and level 2. The level 1 course introduces food safety for people who have no experience in the area, including a review of food hygiene, hazards and responsibilities. It affirms the vital importance of personal hygiene and of cleaning the food preparation, serving and eating areas, and it looks at the problems around food contamination, how to deal with them, and how to prevent it in the first place.

The level 2 course expands on these areas. As well as a personal responsibility to deliver safe food, people involved in food preparation and serving also have legal responsibilities. This course makes these responsibilities clear. It spends time on the issue of food poisoning, looking at what causes it, how to recognise it, and how to prevent it happening, including how to handle raw and cooked food, how to keep food warm safely, and whether it's safe to reheat food. Finally, it looks at how to develop and keep to good working practices, from the delivery of ingredients, through storage, preparation, cooking and serving, and of course the cleaning up afterwards.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For the full list of Acorn Childcare courses contact Calvin Hanks at Acorn Childcare Training, tel.0845 371 0953, e-mail calvin@childcaretraining, www.childcaretraining.co.uk

FURTHER COURSES

Other relevant Acorn courses include:

- Healthy Eating for 5- to 12-year-olds covers similar areas, but also the special issues in catering for older children

- Healthier Food and Special Diets (CIEH level 2 award) expands on topics covered by the two 'healthy eating' courses. It discusses the differences in nutritional requirements of different population groups, clarifies the rather confusing area of current policy, legislation and voluntary guidelines, and explores the effects of food processing on nutrient content and the meanings behind nutrition labelling

- Helping Lunchtime Supervisors Promote Healthy Eating (HLSPHE) is a short course that teaches the basics of healthy eating, and helps staff to promote both healthy packed lunches and healthy school meals

- Health and Safety in Early Years covers the legal responsibilities for people working with children, and supports the knowledge learned in the food safety courses by explaining how to work safely, and make the environment safe for staff and for children, as well as explaining the risks of manual handling

- Allergies and Intolerances provides essential information for understanding the differences between allergies and intolerances, hidden allergens and menu alternatives, with sample recipes

Other training providers in nutrition:
The Kid's Cookery School
- www.thekidscookeryschool.co.uk
The Maria Montessori Institute
- www.mariamontessori.org
NDNA
- www.ndna.org.uk