The EYFS stipulates any snacks children are provided with in settings should be ‘healthy, balanced and nutritious’. But what does this look like in practice?
The Eat better, start bettervoluntary food and drink guidelines set out the importance of snacks for children over one year of age. Before that, recommendations are that no snacks need to be provided.
Catherine Lippe, a registered nutritionist at the Early Years Nutrition Partnership, says snacks can provide a useful opportunity for young children to ‘top up’ on energy and nutrients in between meals, with the guidelines suggesting a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack.
However, despite children’s high energy and nutrient requirements, their small stomachs mean they need to eat small amounts regularly, so should not go more than three hours without food.
Paediatric dietitian Lucy Neary explains, ‘Snacks often get put to the back of the queue while people put emphasis on meals instead, particularly dinner. But snacks are very important, particularly in nursery settings, because small children have high energy needs. They need to eat little and often.’
GRAZING
Neary suggests allowing children to help themselves to regulate their own intake. ‘The optimum way of feeding children is to use division of responsibility, where adults provide the food, but children decide what and how much they eat,’ she says. ‘That way, if they want a little bit more of something, or don’t want anything at all, it is fine. Appetite fluctuates. Children at this age regulate their appetite over a week or more, so they will have some days where they eat and some days where they barely have anything.
‘What’s really important is that we allow them to eat to their own appetite. The science shows us very strongly that the more that you tell a child they have to eat something, the less they are going to eat it.’
Rolling snacks, where snacks are available for children to help themselves over an extended period of time, might be offered to help children learn to regulate their intake and develop independence.
‘It might even be possible to involve children in the preparation of the snack as part of a planned cooking activity where they can help to chop, mix or peel ingredients,’ Lippe adds.
However, she warns against allowing children to ‘graze’ throughout the day. ‘It’s best to have set snack times that fit around your nursery meals,’ she says. ‘Grazing on snacks throughout the day may spoil a child’s appetite at mealtimes.’
HOW MUCH TO EAT
Calorie counting or monitoring for young children is widely discouraged, not least as children are unlikely to take in more energy than they need if they are offered a range of healthy meals and snacks.
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) does provide some estimates of daily energy requirements for children, ranging from 765 kcal/day for one-year-old boys to 1,386 for four-year-olds, and from 717 to 1,291 for girls, but these should not be used to dictate a child’s intake.
Lippe warns, ‘It’s also importantto remember that children can have very variable appetites and are unlikely to eat the same amount of calories each day.’
‘We don’t tend to highlight calorie requirements for young children,’ agrees Edwina Revel, programme director at Early Start Group. ‘It’s much better to look at the variety of foods children need from each food group to meet their energy and nutrient requirements.’
VARIETY
Neary recommends approaching snacks as ‘mini-meals’. She says, ‘A snack is like an extra opportunity to make sure we’re getting good food into children,’ she says. ‘It’s also a really nice chance to offer different foods, especially as lots of children in this age group start to become fussy.’
A healthy balanced diet for children aged one to four years is based on four food groups, according to the guidelines:
- Potatoes, bread, rice, pasta and other starchy carbohydrates.
- Fruit and vegetables.
- Beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other proteins.
- Dairy and alternatives.
The guidelines recommend providing a starchy food as part of at least one snack each day, and beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat or other proteins as part of snacks once or twice a week.
‘In my experience of working with nurseries, a classic pitfall is lack of variety when it comes to snacks,’ says Lippe. ‘The common default is often to offer a single piece of fruit or some veggie sticks because that is nutritious and easy to prepare, but it’s important to include foods from other food groups too.
‘By including at least two different food groups at every snack, you will not only increase the variety and nutritional value of the snack but also make it more interesting and appealing for children.’
She recommends as an example offering breadsticks as carbohydrate, hummus dip as protein and cucumber sticks as fruit and vegetables.
WHAT TO AVOID
Salty snacks such as crisps, pretzels or salted crackers should be left out of snack planning, the guidelinessay, while all sweet foods, including cakes, biscuits and confectionery, should be avoided as they can damage children’s teeth, particularly in light of the new focus in the revised EYFS on oral health.
Dried fruit is recommended only to be provided at meal times as it contains sugars that can stick to teeth and damage them.
However, Neary suggests a total ban on sugar could be counter-productive. ‘Official advice is often that children don’t need sugar and shouldn’t be having it, but in food psychology there is the understanding that when you make things forbidden, they become very exciting,’ she says.
PARENTS
Communication with parents is vital when planning snacks, with the guidelines recommending settings provide information on snack routines to help carers plan their child’s routine at home. They also suggest sharing the food policy.
Neary acknowledges this can mean settings have to push back on parental expectations at times. ‘There can be a real pressure on settings to report back to parents on how much a child ate of each meal,’ she says. ‘But if you can reassure them there are regular snacks coming in, it can help them feel more relaxed.’
CASE STUDY: Kindred Hainault, London
Sarah Tayler, senior nursery manager at Kindred Hainault in Ilford, says the setting offers two rolling snacks from 10-10.30am and 2-2.30pm, with an extra snack at 5.30pm for children who stay until the nursery closes at 6.00pm.
‘We found that when children were engaged in play, a snack arriving meant they had to stop what they were doing, tidy up and eat,’ she says. ‘It interrupted them, which meant they almost resented snack time. We wanted to turn that into something more positive.’
Snacks are put out on a small table with a staff member in attendance, with children allowed to take what they want. ‘Staff can engage better with a smaller group as they eat, so it’s more sociable,’ Tayler explains.
Children are often offered a choice of foods. ‘We might offer a selection, like two different types of fruit and a rice cake or a cracker,’ says Tayler. ‘That is empowering for children because no one is forcing them to eat anything.
‘Of course, we’ve got budgets, and it takes time to prepare things, so we don’t go overboard, but it’s just about giving some choice and offering a wide variety to help children decide what they like.’
Children are encouraged to get involved in preparing their own snack, from using food they have grown themselves to slicing their bananas or spreading dip onto a cracker.
Meanwhile, limited time slots ensure children cannot graze all day. ‘As much as you want to be flexible, we’ve only got one chef, and she needs plates and bowls back on the trolleys to get ready for lunch,’ explains Tayler.
Parents receive updates on their child’s intake through the nursery’s Famly app.
Further information
- https://theearlyyearsdietitian.co.uk
- Eat better, start better: A practical guide https://bit.ly/3qLWDQ2
- NHS guidance on snacks: https://bit.ly/3qyZJXu
- Early Start Nutrition guidance: https://bit.ly/3BbnREx
Eating well
How can settings and parents get portion sizes right? Catherine Lippe, Early Years Nutrition Partnership (EYNP) registered nutrition professional, explains
Babies are born with the ability to self-regulate food intake to support their growth, and this can continue beyond infancy into childhood, providing it is not overridden by social influences or parents and carers. However, many parents are worried their children do not eat enough.
Portion sizes are critical as they are one of the main ways in which parents and caregivers can inadvertently override children’s self-regulation systems. Larger portions form children’s acceptance about what is an appropriate amount to eat and this becomes their ‘norm’ regardless of their internal satiety signals.
Parents and staff need to be reassured that they are feeding children enough; however, parents may have a set quantity in mind. We need to be more open-minded about the quantity needed. Babies, toddlers and children don’t need to eat the same amount at every meal, and it is important that they know when they are full.
Children’s appetites will vary from day to day, meal to meal and child to child, according to their age, gender, activity level, growth rate and state of health. There are no specific recommendations on how much a child should eat. Instead, it is important to allow children to remain in tune with their own satiety and hunger cues and to avoid overriding these signals.
Ideas for managing portion sizes include:
Consider the timings of meals and snacks. Offering food at regular intervals (every two or two and a half hours, for example) provides plenty of opportunities to top up on energy and nutrients throughout the nursery day.
Share guidance on age-appropriate portion sizes with staff (available from EYNP and the British Nutrition Foundation). Consider these guides to be ‘serving suggestions’ rather than portions that must be eaten. Encourage older children to serve themselves.
Allow children to stop eating even if they haven’t eaten everything on their plate.
Offer second helpings of any element of the main meal if a child asks for more.
Encourage children to think about hunger and fullness cues. Use language such as, ‘Does your tummy feel stretched, full, big, tight or full?’ or ‘Does your tummy feel empty? Is it rumbling and making funny noises?’
Sit fussy eaters with children who eat well to encourage them, but never force them to accept large portion sizes.
Create a portion-size policy and share it with parents.
- For more information and practical support with portion sizes in your setting from an expert nutritionist or dietitian, contact the Early Years Nutrition Partnership at www.eynpartnership.org
