All child care day centers should by law provide your child with a diet that meets certain standards of a child’s nutritional needs. By law every day care provider has to meet certain standards regarding menu planning, food preparation, food safety and nutritional requirements.

The center should also be able to provide a safe and pleasant environment at meal times and they should also promote healthy eating habits. It is also important that you let the day care center know of any special food requirements your child has for example, if they are allergic to any food or foods which are known to cause problems with hyper activity in your child.

What you can do to ensure your child receives the correct diet

• Does the day care center have a menu posted up that you can look at.
• Does the center offer your child a choice of meals or a set meal.
• Does the center provide you with a menu to take home.
• Does the center have a snack shop, if so what choices do they have.
• Does the center take part in schemes such as providing your child with one free piece of fresh fruit or vegetable per day.
• Does the center give milk to drink or fruit juice.
• Does the snack shop offer salt and sugar free sweets and crisps.
• Does the center order in food or cook it on the premises.
• Are the children encouraged to eat fruit and vegetable with their meal.
• Does the center promote healthy eating habits.

The main menu

Some child care day centers invite parents to help in making the choices for the menus and hold special meetings for this, parents are not only encouraged to take part in choosing a healthy diet for their children but are also provided with information regarding the diet and menu the day care centers provides.

It is important that you do play an active role in any program that the day care center may offer as often this is the only way of finding out what foods and nutritional programs the day care center has to offer.

Guidelines

Meals and snacks provided by the day care center should meet standards set out and meet certain guidelines:

• Children who attend day care for 8 hours or more should be offered at least one main meal and 2 snacks throughout the day.
• Food should be offered at intervals which are no more than 3 hours apart.
• Meals should provide adequate servings from the milk, yogurt and cheese group, meat, poultry, fish and egg group, vegetable group, fruit group and the bread, cereal, rice and pasta group.
• Food should consist of no more than 30% of daily energy from fat.
• Less than 10% of total daily energy from saturated fat.
• Less than 300mg of cholesterol.
• Limited use of sugar and sodium.
• Every child should receive sufficient servings of fresh or frozen vegetable and fruit every day to ensure they receive enough vitamin C.
• Whole grain products should be included to ensure the child receives enough dietary fiber.
• Raw unprocessed foods should be used whenever possible.