Nutritional Experience in Early Childhood: A Critical Analysis of Three Articles

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
Nutritional experience in early childhood has a long lasting consequence in the
development of the child. First few years of life are characterized by the rapid developmental
changes related to eating and healthy eating habits are associated with the prevention of the array
of non- communicable and communicable disease (Cole, Vidgen & Cleland, 2017). The prime
reason behind it is that healthy eating habit improves the immune system and facilitates the
healthy weight in the child. However, as discussed by Ashman, Collins, Hure, Jensen and
Oldmeadow (2016), approximately 25% of the children of age in between 2 to 15 years are
obese and 1 in 4 infants are overweight, indicating they are at higher risk of developing chronic
diseases. The purpose of the assessment is to provide critical analysis of two articles and a report,
focusing on eating habits of children. This paper will discuss key evidence of authors, key ideas
of articles, critical analysis of best article supporting with the rationale in the following
paragraphs.
Discussion
Methodology and result:
Evidence-based on which argument was made:
Methodology section of a peer-reviewed journal is considered as the evidence of the
experiment conducted by researchers in order to investigate the hypothesis which involves data
collection, data interpretation, and inclusion criteria (Lobstein et al. 2016). This portion of the
paper will focus on the evidence based on which the authors made their arguments.
• Considering the first article, Cole, Vidgen and Cleland (2016), conducted a semi-structured
interview regarding the use of tools, menu planning , nutritional adequacy , checklist and

EARLY CHILDHOOD
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guidelines , identification and management of unhealthy foods in order to investigate the
process , strategies and method that has been undertaken by staffs and authorities of early
childhood care and services. The primary aim of the researchers was to identify the nutritional
adequacy of food that was provided to children as well as the quality of those children. The
researchers conducted a semi-structured interview, with 22 individuals where 12 LCD along with
7 educators, 5cooks and 13 directors. The researchers used NVIvo software to analyze the data
collected from the interview and then they executed case by case comparison to generate
appropriate themes. The study results of the study suggested that LDCS did not use any tools that
were developed by health professional while provided the service to the children. However, only
LDCS with different subgroups used tool which was developed by nutrition Australia in order to
evaluate the nutritional adequacy of the food that was provided to infants. The LCDs used
personal knowledge while they were deciding the nutritional adequacy of the food of the
children. However, the limitation of this study is that the study had a small sample size and
limited geographical locations. Further researches are required with adequate sample size and
geographical location
• Considering the second article, Gerritsen, Dean, Morton, and Wall (2017), conducted online
survey focusing on 257 childcare services of three region of New Zealand and each service
uploaded their weekly menu. Each menu was scored with the compliance with guidelines where
variety, quantity, and quality of the foods were used as the parameters. In order to identify the
association between menu score and service characteristics, multivariate and bivariate analysis
was done. The online survey highlighted that 118 services provided the information regarding
the cost spent on single child. Only 21 services reported their cost. The authors made their
argument based on the survey result where they obtained the result that none of the services met