Nursery World - Home Learning - A parent’s guide to…healthy eating

Getting a child to eat and drink a nutritionally balanced diet can be difficult. Penny Tassoni provides some useful tips

Hardly a week goes by without childhood obesity or another food issue being flagged up in the media. Feeding children should be a simple task, but the reality for many parents is very different. First, there are often some mixed messages about what is good for children and what should be limited. Then, for some families, there is the difficulty of coping with children who are fussy or are already set in their ways.

FIVE FACTS ABOUT FOOD

Here are five things worth knowing about food in early childhood:

1. Nutrients matter

There is an irony that some young children who are overweight are actually undernourished. This is because the foods that they are eating are not sufficiently high in vitamins and minerals such as iron and calcium. Nutrients matter in early childhood because the young body needs them to support the growth that is taking place.

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