INTRODUCTION
Early experiences with foods are very important in forming life-long attitudes that affect health and well-being. Children have much to learn about foods, eating and nutrition. They are not born with the ability to choose a nutritious diet. Their food habits are learned through experience. Thus, parents and teachers alike should teach children positive health practices early in life. Nutrition education, which begins in preschool and continues throughout the school years, can help children to establish these life-long healthy eating habits.
The need for nutrition education beginning in the preschool years and continuing throughout the school years is particularly important in light of recent research results. Nutritionists recommend that Americans in general should:
Eat a variety of food.
Maintain an ideal weight.
Avoid too much fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.
Eat more starch and fiber.
Avoid too much sugar.
Avoid too much sodium.The importance of nutrition education as a basic part of the learning experiences of children in Head Start was recognized by those who developed the program and is noted in the Head Start Program Performance Standards. (1)Thus nutrition education always has received significant focus in Head Start. Teachers are enthusiastic about the nutrition component of the curriculum when they see how nutrition education enhances learning in many subject areas.
The teaching of good food habits through nutrition education is facilitated by teachers and food service personnel working together to coordinate the nutrition lessons with the meals and snacks that are served to the children. Nutrition activities can be planned using foods that are included in the day's menus for the lunch and snack. In this way, no extra expense will be involved, and the snack prepared will be the snack for the day. Suggested menus that meet the nutritional requirements are shown in Planning Guide For Food Service in Child Care Centers(2) (see pages xvii-xx).
Meal times and food are a part of the total educational program. The nutritional goal of the meal pattern for Head Start is to promote the optimal nutritional status of the children as determined by the Recommended Dietary Allowances.(3)
1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Development Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families Head Start Bureau, Head Start Program Performance Standards (45-CFR 1304), Washington, DC, November 1984.2 U.S. Department of' Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, A Planning Guide for Food Service in Child Care Centers (FNS-64) Washington, DC Revised January 1981, slightly revised
September 1985.3 National Academy of Sciences, Recommended Dietary Allowances, Ninth Revised Edition, 1980, Washington, DC, February 1986.
Multidisciplinary Approach A multidisciplinary approach to nutrition education provides teachers with nutrition education lessons which can also be used to teach the skills and concepts of art, language, math, music, physical development, science, social development and social studies. The figure on page xxi describes graphically the multidisciplinary characteristics of nutrition education.
This multidisciplinary preschool nutrition education curriculum, Children, Get A Head Start On The Road To Good Nutrition, has been specifically written for children ages three, four and five years old who are participating in the National Head Start program. The curriculum was designed to promote learning in three to five year olds. Although children in this age group vary greatly in their abilities and skills, the lessons in this curriculum are written so that they can be easily modified to the skills and capabilities of practically all preschoolers.
In order to provide for the diverse characteristics of preschoolers across the country, this curriculum has incorporated a variety of teaching techniques and learning experiences which allow for flexibility and easy adaptation. For example, all lessons are designed to be used as they appear in the curriculum or they can be modified to match the needs and interests of children in any Head Start setting. For example, many stories and poems can be easily adapted to specific classroom needs, to reinforce concepts taught in other subject matter areas or to utilize existing classroom materials. In addition, names of children in your classroom can be substituted for character names appearing in the stories, songs or poems.
Adapted from: Beginnings and Beyond: Foundations in Early Childhood Education. A. Gordon and K. Brown, Delmar Publishers, Inc., Albany, New York, 1985, p-301
Multicultural Diversity The multicultural diversity of the United States and the National Head Start program has also been recognized during the development of this curriculum. Some lessons have been developed to incorporate the characteristics and traditions of many cultural, ethnic and regional groups into food preparation activities, games, stories, poems and songs. Existing lessons can also be adapted to reflect more fully specific cultural, ethnic or regional interests and differences by changing story character names, selecting cultural, ethnic or regional foods to use during food preparation activities, or adding pictures of cultural, ethnic or regional foods to the lessons.
Teaching Ease A special feature of this curriculum is that the lessons are detailed enough to allow individuals who have no formal teaching experience or nutrition training to present worthwhile nutrition education activities. All lessons provide background information, specific guidelines for conducting the program and pertinent resources. Many lessons, especially food preparation and field trip activities, encourage parent involvement and are actually enhanced by parent involvement. The symbol P appears beside the lesson titles to indicate that parent involvement enhances the quality of that lesson. Parent involvement at school has several benefits: parents can manage and generate new ideas, parents get an opportunity to learn about nutrition and parents see what their children are doing at school and can reinforce this learning at home.
Teachers can link home and school by communicating with parents on a regular basis. This communication can help teachers to understand each child better. It also presents and opportunity to guide parents and possibly improve their parenting skills. A good parent-teacher rapport often helps parents to understand the educational needs of their children and extend learning experiences to the home. Appendix B of this curriculum contains several newsletters that can be used to inform parents of the nutritional activities in your Head Start program. The newsletters also provide nutrition and child development information for the parents and activities that parents can do at home to reinforce the concepts taught at school. Another important characteristic of this curriculum is that is self-contained. No other materials (except art supplies, food and food preparation equipment) are needed. All story and food pictures, card games, songs, poems and stories are included in each lesson. This makes teaching nutrition via this curriculum time, energy and cost efficient.