Importance of Child Care Professionals in Promoting Healthy Eating Habits in Children

Running head: HEALTH AND WELLBEING
HEALTH AND WELLBEING
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1HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Early childhood is an important time for the establishment of the healthy eating
patterns. This is why there is a need for a balanced healthy habits to be developed in children
since this provides the children with the nutrients that are required for them to grow. Such a
healthy should contain daily meals thrice a day which should involve the following groups of
food like the carbohydrates, proteins, fruits, vegetables and others like the dairy products,
some amount of fat as well as sugar. The parents who are able to make their children adopt
healthy eating from an early age are able to have a positive effect on their children’s dietary
habits in the later life (Dodds et al. 2014). Researches have shown that instilling good eating
habits in children helps in building a healthy body weight, building a strong immune
function, having a better brain function and others (Press 2014). Therefore this paper aims to
focus on the importance of the child care professionals involved in the child care services
who play a significant role in the healthy eating habits of the children which makes the child
develop positive attitudes towards the good food choices.
Evidently, childcare services plays a significant part in the childcare and the early
year of juvenile education thus affecting the families and the communities in a significant
manner. These services are also involved in providing opportunities for establishing child
development along with the provision of healthy nutrition to these children. Examples of
early childcare services include the arrangements like the long day-care along with family
day-care, kindergarten, pre-schools in addition to the outside-school-hours which helps to
focus on the childcare and education (Cole, Vidgen and Cleland 2017). Reports suggest that
in Australia, the number of children who attend the child care centres are almost over
630,000 belonging to the age group of 0-4. This number increases after the child gets
admitted to the pre-school as is reported in the year of 2015 (Lockeridge et al. 2015). In the
Australian context, the early childhood Australia focuses on the children’ wellbeing and

2HEALTH AND WELLBEING
hygiene. For this there is a need for the development of good eating patterns which will help
to establish a healthy life. There are several guidelines that are provided by the government
along with other organizations which mainly help the parents of these children to make good
choices regarding the food and drink these children take. Changing of eating habits in
children in to healthy eating is understood to have a long lasting effect (Gerritsen et al. 2017).
The importance of the good food choices is well documented in terms of an early childhood
development which includes the early life experiences which in turn will affect the later life
of the children. Although most of the Australian children are thriving, however there have
been rising concerns related to the issues such as overweight and obesity. There are also
issues like the macro- and micronutrient deficiencies, dental caries and food safety, in
addition to an increased dependence on formal child care. It has been reported that there is a
significance of the food literacy skills as well which helps the child care professionals to take
care of the eating behaviours of the children (Yoong et al. 2014).
The nutritional guidelines that have been developed in Australia and also
internationally help in the provision of the recommendations on the type of the food and the
amount of the food that is good for the health. The NHMRC or National Health and Medical
Research Council developed IFG or Infant Feeding Guidelines and ADG or Australian
Dietary Guidelines the which provides suggestions for these children depending on the age
group and the also across the full day. The government of Australia established the Get Up &
Grow: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity for Early Childhood which assisted the ECEC
services for the implementation of the guidelines (Australian Government, Department of
Health and Aging 2013).
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it is estimated that there are about
3.8 million children aged 0–12 years in Australia, who attend the early childhood services.
The choices of the services includes the long day care (LDC), Family Day Care (FDC), In-