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Why should we teach nutrition to young children?
Young children are learning about nutrition, for better or worse, every day. From a newborn's first feeding, a child's day-to-day experiences with food and eating affect the way they think and feel about nutrition for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the messages we give children about food, including what we feed them, how we feed them, and the nutrition education we provide has a lifelong impact. Positive eating and health habits will enhance a child's growth and learning potential and may help prevent health problems throughout life. On the other hand, poor eating and health habits established in early childhood may hamper growth and learning potential, promote disease, and prove difficult to change in adulthood. Nutrition education can inspire children and their families to make a commitment to positive health behaviors.
Why are young children a good audience for nutrition education?
A young child is a learning sponge. At no other time in life is learning capacity so great. What we learn at this age is more likely to be remembered. Most of us can still recite nursery rhymes word-for-word even though we haven't heard them in years. Learning is exciting and fascinating to young children, making them a delightful audience. This makes teaching young children tremendously fun and rewarding. You can literally see children experience the joy of understanding new ideas and gaining new skills. Positive learning experiences not only build positive health habits but also enhance self-esteem.
Can young children understand nutrition? It's awfully complex!
Young children can learn more than you might think, and understand most of what is really important. The basic beliefs and attitudes we need in order to practice good eating habits are not all that complex, and can be easily grasped by a preschool-age child. Children can learn "trying new foods is fun," "we need many different foods to grow," "foods come from plants and animals" and much, much more. Developmentally-appropriate learning experiences present nutrition concepts at a level which matches a child's cognitive and physical development. Young children can learn to identify foods, group foods, prepare simple foods, and make food choices. Most importantly, young children can learn to love learning about nutrition and health and how to take care of themselves.
How can I teach nutrition to young children?
Visit www.funwithfood.com every month. The "Grown-up" pages will give you ideas for activities suitable for school and home, recipes for foods kids love to cook and eat, books to read, and sound information to help you better understand nutrition for young children. The "Kid" pages will have a coloring page and song that goes with the topic discussed on the grown-up pages. The resources pages show books, tapes, and other items you can order to use at home or in the classroom.
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More ideas and activities can be found in Kid's Club: Nutrition Learning Activities for Young Children © 2002, Noteworthy Creations, Inc. See
the "Products" Page for more information. You have permission to copy these pages for limited, educational, non-commercial purposes with credit given by listing www.funwithfood.com as the source.
Noteworthy Creations, Inc.
P.O. Box 335 Delphi, Indiana 46923
Tel: (800) 305-4167 |
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