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Healthy Eating

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In 2015, the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014 (CCEYA) replaced the Day Nurseries Act. Regulation 137/15, specifically sections 42–44, of the CCEYA is intended to ensure that all children attending home and licensed child care centres are provided foods that are safe and nutritious, and meet current nutrition recommendations.

All meals, snacks and drinks served by child care providers must meet the recommendations set of “Canada’s Food Guide”, “Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide – First Nations, Inuit and Métis” or “Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants”.

Planning Your Child Care Menu

The Child Care Menu Planning – Practical Guide supports child care providers with planning and preparing food for children as well as meeting the food and drink requirements set out in the CCEYA. The Guide includes supplementary resources to aid in menu planning on topics such as, modifying recipes to meet the practical guide, increasing use of plant-based proteins, substituting food allergens, samples menus, and reducing environmental impact.

Healthy feeding dynamics are crucial to help children become competent eaters and develop a healthy relationship with food. Nurturing Children through Responsive Feeding describes how educators can nurture children in their care through responsive feeding practices and role modeling. Strategies for Mealtime Success offers strategies to solve some common mealtime situations and promote positive eating habits. These resources can be found here.

Ottawa Public Health has 6 weeks of sample menus and kid-friendly recipes for child care settings.

Paint Your Plate with Vegetables and Fruit: A Toolkit for Ontario Child Care Providers offers a suite of resources to help make it easier for young children to enjoy vegetables and fruit every day. Many children consume most of their food in a child care setting, making these settings the ideal place to promote vegetable and fruit intake.

For additional resources and supports, check out the Ontario Dietitians in Public Health’s Child Care Resources.

NutriSTEP®

NutriSTEP® is a nutrition screening tool for toddlers (18–35 months) and preschoolers (3–5 years). It’s a no-cost questionnaire that looks at children’s eating, physical activity and screen time habits to identify what is going well and what areas could be improved. NutriSTEP® offers resources and tools for the whole family on a variety of topics, including meal planning, cooking, healthy growth, feeding and mealtime challenges, grocery shopping, among others.