Healthy nutrition in daycare centers

Table of contents

1 A look at health – reasons for a healthy diet in childhood

2 Healthy nutrition in daycare centers – possibilities and opportunities

3 How to promote health awareness among children regarding a healthy diet in day-care centres
3.1 Healthy breakfast
3.2 Educational partnership
3.3 Nutrition education
3.4 Promoting resilience

4 Possible consequences for the development of a child due to unhealthy diet
4.1 Consequences of malnutrition
4.2 Consequences of overeating

5 Practical implementation of a healthy diet for children in a day care center
5.1 Joint purchase of food
5.2 Baking a bread
5.3 Self-catering in day-care centres
5.4 Healthy breakfast – getting to know new foods
5.5 Parental work
5.6 Participation for the quality of health education

6 Summary

Bibliography

List of tables and figures

Table directory

List of figures

1 A look at health – reasons for a healthy diet in childhood

"What Hänschen does not learn, Hans never learns" – this old saying is very topical for the topic of "healthy lifestyle". Which sense of taste a person develops, whether he likes to eat dairy products or vegetables, likes to move or reluctantly, is created in early childhood. Often once acquired habits persist into old age, almost like a ritual. Children are open to imprinting until about primary school age, which is why health education plays a central role¹.

"When children learn what healthy eating means, how important it is to move a lot, to take responsibility for their body and health, this creates a good basis."². Obesity is particularly evident in the enrolment studies of pre-school children and has been growing for years, writes the Bavarian State Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Family and Integration and the State Institute for Early Childhood Education. Parents often do not notice weight gain so much because they see their children daily, some feel a few pounds too much as not dramatic. Once an overweight is pronounced and manifested, it can lead to impairment of well-being and physical performance but also to type 2 diabetes mellitus³. Diabetes mellitus type 2"[...] is the most common metabolic disease in children today."⁴. But addiction and low stress resistance also have their origin often in early childhood, writes Reichert-Garschhammer⁵.

Due to those exemplary diseases, which increase every year as described above, it is all the more important to concentrate on health in childhood. Health as "...an essential condition for social, economic and personal development and a crucial part of the quality of life."⁶. From this, the educational and educational goals in Bavarian day care centers can be derived, which independently of parents have a "[...] health-conscious life [...]"⁷ as well as a "[...] health-promoting behaviour [...]"⁸ promote. One focus of these educational goals is nutrition education, which is a core topic in day-care facilities. "Food as an educational offer" – this aspect must be given great weight today in order to counteract nutritional errors and unfavorable eating habits at an early stage."⁹.

"In early childhood [...] cognitive, psychological and social development is sustainably influenced by health and well-being. Poverty, family problems [...] or disadvantages of any kind pose a major threat to children's health."¹⁰ This is a comprehensive reason for the need for health promotion in early childhood. If a day care center consciously deals with the topic of health promotion and does not see the associated topics "nutrition", "exercise" and "relaxation" as an additional offer, not only the children can benefit from it, but also the pedagogical specialists and the parents.¹¹ Children of such a day care center "[...] developed a stronger awareness of a healthy lifestyle."¹² They ate more fruits and vegetables, experienced their self-efficacy through food preparation, enjoyment and awareness of eating, and were more open to unknown foods. Through the health promotion offered, the children learned the importance of their own well-being.¹³

Pedagogical professionals have been adapted to their "[...] Role model function more consciously [...] and live [...] the children are even more aware of a healthy lifestyle in the kindergarten."¹⁴ The parents were able to become more aware of the topics of "nutrition", "exercise" and "relaxation" and linked a high level of satisfaction with the activities of the day care centre and its information offers.¹⁵ If parenthood and educational staff are convinced of health-promoting measures for the children, this is also positively passed on to the children.

2 Healthy nutrition in daycare centers – possibilities and opportunities

"In the kindergarten sector, prevention measures to promote a healthy lifestyle can have long-term effects on the entire life cycle of children. Here, almost all children are reached and impulses are set early and immediately for the children's everyday nutrition and exercise."¹⁶

An Internet search for daycare centers, with a concept focused on healthy nutrition, has shown that they are conceptually similar to each other and serve a wide variety of design options. For example, daycare centers can afford their own cook or housekeeper, who prepares the hot lunch fresh on site. Regionality, seasonality, wholesality of the food and meat quality are important to most institutions. The support of regional and seasonal food also speaks for a high level of environmental sensitivity. Shorter transport routes protect the environment, but also the amount of waste, as no complex packaging is necessary.

For most daycare centers, it is important that the children are involved in the preparation of the food. Further opportunities for participation arise in the design of the menus or the food selection, for example through a buffet, in which the children can choose for themselves what and how much they want to eat. If children are involved in the design of the table decoration and the determination of the table motto, they are let to participate in the type and extent of well-being at the table.

In their conception, some institutions attach great importance to a quiet eating atmosphere, to a sufficient time window for food intake and to a nutrition-forming accompaniment to the table. A daycare center educates its children during the meal by explaining to the educational staff something about the origin and composition of the food consumed by the children. Thus, the interest in food and at the same time an awareness of the individual ingredients is awakened. The cooperation with the parents is very important to all the daycare centers considered here, because they can extend the continuity of health education to the time at home with the parents.

Some institutions, but especially those in the big cities, offer children with food intolerances and allergies, but also those with a religious background, a diet that is compatible or coherent for them. This represents a high level of effort, but is becoming increasingly important to include children suffering from the above limitations. Furthermore, it is important for some daycare centers to eat porcelain and glass dishes, to put in one "gourmet day" per month, to display the menu at children's eye level (pictured in pictures), to look for a tablemate before going to the dining room or to prepare all the ingredients used (raw) in menu form (for tasting, touching and seeing) before.^{17 18 19 20}

Using the example of almost 1000 day-care centres surveyed, the figure attached below shows which form of preparation they usually choose for their lunch catering. Most daycare centers choose the "cook-and-hold" method, in which a supplier pre-cooks lunch and then it is delivered in warming containers. With this method, however, the nutritional quality and taste of the food is lost to the greatest extent. The second most common way for daycare centers is to use the "cook-and-serve" method, in which a cook or housekeeper cooks lunch herself and only uses some food in the frozen state. This method keeps nutrient quality and taste at the highest level due to timely output. In second to last place is the "cook-and-freeze method" in which lunch is cooked by the supplier and immediately frozen. This method can only be implemented in daycare centers with their own freezer room. The nutrients remain well contained, the taste remains, but the variety of products is limited by freezing. In last place is the "cook-and-chill method". Here, the cooked lunch is slowly cooled down to refrigerator temperature and delivered to the daycare centers. The taste is very well preserved and the nutrient quality of the food persists well. Here, too, the receiver needs a large cold room to be able to use this method.²¹

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Fig. 1: Distribution of catering systems in German day-care centres²²

3 How to promote health awareness among children regarding a healthy diet in day-care centres

3.1 Healthy breakfast

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is a well-known saying, but there are many children and parents who leave the house in the morning without breakfast. In day-care centres and schools, a parent-independent breakfast offer (e.B breakfast buffet) can be organised or what you bring from home can be upgraded with raw food (fruit and vegetables). Thus, rather unfavorable eating habits, which come from the parental home, can be compensated.²³ "At the joint breakfast offer in the kindergarten, children can be familiarized more intensively with a balanced diet [...] practice in the preparation of small dishes and expand their taste perception through tasting. These experiences also have an effect on the family through the children."²⁴

3.2 Educational partnership

For the good of the children, pedagogical specialists of the day care centers should work together with the parents of the respective children. Both sides significantly shape the lifestyle of the children due to the time spent together and can contribute to health promotion. In education and upbringing agreements, more and more parents and daycare are taking on joint responsibility for different areas of education.²⁵ "Parental partnership should be understood in the following both as a reflection and change of parental parenting behavior (initiated by the kindergarten) and as a coordination of education in the kindergarten (between parents and pedagogical specialists). Parental partnership is an elementary part of pedagogical work. It succeeds through dialogue and cooperation."²⁶ In most cases, the desire of the parents and the pedagogical specialists for the health of the children is the common denominator that brings both sides together. There are many similar points of contact, but also topics on the part of the parents, which must be considered. These are individual needs (e.B. vegan food), interests, attitudes (e.B. low-sugar/sugar-free diet), habits (e.B. dairy-free diet), religious and cultural influences (such as.B avoidance of pork) as well as different parenting styles (e.B. snacking behavior, emphasis on organic food).²⁷ "Thus, a functioning parent partnership in the field of health promotion faces the challenge of taking these individual requirements into account within the framework of an overall concept."²⁸ Ideally, parents should be informed about the concept and the goals of health promotion that the educational staff wants to achieve together with the parents during the admission interview. The activities of the day care center should always be comprehensible and understandable and, if possible, made public (e.B. in the context of an information board). In this way, it can be possible for parenthood to provide starting points for its own actions. This can be reinforced by shared experiences with the children in the daycare center. Here, for example, cooking evenings or exercise activities are available.²⁹

3.3 Nutrition education

In addition to the education and care of the children, day-care centres also have an educational mission. This also includes nutrition education. Since the formation of taste and the shaping of nutritional behaviour are created in the first years of life, health promotion and nutrition education in day-care centres are very much an essential goal.³⁰ "With a corresponding pedagogical offer, action skills and health-friendly behaviors are promoted. [...] The aim of the nutritional education work is to enable children to deal with food and drink in a self-determined and self-responsible manner."³¹

Inspired by the children's questions, nutrition education can be offered regularly during the day in a daycare center. There is the possibility to involve the children in everyday situations that affect nutrition, to carry out offers or projects. Children ask, for example.B. "Why should I drink?", "Where does the food come from?", "How is a certain dish prepared?" and much more. There are numerous practical starting points and possibilities for these questions in a daycare center, which should be briefly explained.³²

Get to know the variety of foods:

The range of previously known foods can be expanded together with other children, for example through a breakfast offered by the daycare center or a concrete topic (e.B. "What are dairy products"). All senses are addressed and, above all, the sense of taste is refined.³³

Regular daily routines, rituals, routines:

These are becoming increasingly important for health promotion. As described at the beginning, the number of overweight children is constantly increasing, which makes one of the main goals of nutrition education the avoidance of an emerging overweight. This becomes possible if children eat together regularly and at fixed meal times. The mediation of fixed processes, such as washing hands, covering and clearing the table, is just as important, as they can orient themselves to them. The corresponding rules and framework conditions are to be created by the pedagogical team.³⁴ "His educational accompaniment at the table strengthens the children in the independent selection of food, when trying new food, in dealing with crockery and cutlery and much more. Table manners and an inviting ambience make meals a pleasant experience for everyone."³⁵

[...]

¹ Grünewald-Funk, 2011, p. 17

² Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Familie und Integration, Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik, 2017, p. 361

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Reichert-Garschhammer, 2011, p. 53

⁶ Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Familie und Integration, Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik, 2017, p. 360

⁷ Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Familie und Integration, Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik, 2017, p. 362

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, Familie und Integration, Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik, 2017, p. 369

¹⁰ John, 2011, p. 82

¹¹ Pfütze, Wesling, Hammerbacher, 2011, p. 78

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Pfütze, Wesling, Hammerbacher, 2011, p. 78 - 79

¹⁴ Pfütze, Wesling, Hammerbacher, 2011, p. 79

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Lambeck, 2011, p. 13

¹⁷ Kita am Fliess, 2018

¹⁸ Kita Josefinum, 2018

¹⁹ Kita-Verbund Kleinmachnow, 2018

²⁰ Catholic Day Care Center St. Martin, 2018

²¹ Office for Food, Agriculture and Forestry Würzburg, 2015, p. 9

²² National Quality Center for Nutrition in Kindergarten and School, 2018

²³ Hammerbacher, 2008, p. 22

²⁴ Hammerbacher, 2008, p. 22 - 23

²⁵ Eichner, 2011, p. 43

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Eichner, 2011, pp. 44-45

²⁸ Eichner, 2011, p. 45

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ German Society for Nutrition e.V., 2011, p. 29

³¹ Ibid.

³² Grünewald-Funk, 2011, p. 21

³³ Grünewald-Funk, 2011, p. 21

³⁴ Grünewald-Funk, 2011, pp. 21-22

³⁵ Grünewald-Funk, 2011, p. 22