Childcare Food Provision Recommendations Vary across Australia: Jurisdictional Comparison and Nutrition Expert Perspectives

Alison Spence, Penelope Love, Rebecca Byrne, Amy Wakem, Louisa Matwiejczyk, Amanda Devine, Rebecca Golley and Ros Sambell
Additional contact information
Alison Spence: Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Penelope Love: Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Rebecca Byrne: Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Centre for Children’s Health Research, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia
Amy Wakem: Nutrition Australia Vic, Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia
Louisa Matwiejczyk: College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Amanda Devine: School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia
Rebecca Golley: Caring Futures Institute, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Ros Sambell: School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-19

Abstract: Early childhood is a critical stage for nutrition promotion, and childcare settings have the potential for wide-reaching impact on food intake. There are currently no Australian national guidelines for childcare food provision, and the comparability of existing guidelines across jurisdictions is unknown. This project aimed to map and compare childcare food provision guidelines and to explore perspectives amongst early childhood nutrition experts for alignment of jurisdictional childcare food provision guidelines with the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADG). A desktop review was conducted and formed the basis of an online survey. A national convenience sample of childhood nutrition experts was surveyed. Existing guideline recommendations for food group serving quantities were similar across jurisdictions but contained many minor differences. Of the 49 survey respondents, most (84–100%) agreed with aligning food group provision recommendations to provide at least 50% of the recommended ADG serves for children. Most (94%) agreed that discretionary foods should be offered less than once per month or never. Jurisdictional childcare food provision guidelines do not currently align, raising challenges for national accreditation and the provision of support and resources for services across jurisdictions. Childhood nutrition experts support national alignment of food provision guidelines with the ADG.

Keywords: early childhood education and care; childcare; long day care; infant; toddler; preschool; nutrition; dietary guidelines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6793/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6793/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6793-:d:415197

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().