Healthy eating and physical activity recommendations in early childhood
Healthy Eating
Many families are concerned about their child eating enough throughout the day at kinder. It is of course important that children eat enough to maintain their energy levels, to support them to engage effectively in learning and to meet their energy requirements for their development and growth.
Educators are there to be good role models in enjoying healthy food and in encouraging children to eat regularly.
We encourage families to provide a range of healthy food options and provide water to drink, we will refill children's bottles throughout the day when needed.
It is important to note that children's energy needs will fluctuate from day to day- some days children will be more or less hungry than other days.
Educators follow the advice of dieticians that eating times should be low-stress and children should not be forced to eat when they are not hungry, doing so can lead to food refusal, disordered eating patterns and negative associations with food and eating.
Here is some advice around supporting healthy eating patterns in early childhood...
If you have concerns about your child's eating habits and its impact on their health you can speak to your child's Maternal health nurse, your doctor or support can be found through MonashLink Dietetics, here is a link...
https://www.linkhc.org.au/dietetics/
Physical Activity-
Kinder is a dynamic place to be with lots of opportunities to be active and to meet children's daily recommended activity levels.
At kinder we plan experiences that get children's heart rate pumping such as dancing, games and specific programs such as PMP for the four-year-old kinder classes. In both three and four-year old kinder we also support children to spend plenty of time learning outside where they can jump, run, dig, climb, play ball games and build using large resources such as blocks, reels, crates etc.
All of these activities are great for children's physical development but also promote a positive self-image and enhance their sense of social and emotional wellbeing.
"Children aged 3 years up to 5 years should be physically active for at least three hours each day. This includes one hour of energetic play."
At home you can support your child to be active by limiting screen time and encouraging plenty of outside play time.
Below is a good link that discusses a balanced approach to screen time....