Food and Health in Early Childhood

A Holistic Approach

Deborah Albon, Penny Mukherji

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781473902930
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

?I believe that [this book] could be of value to practitioners working with birth-five year olds, heads or managers of nurseries, health professionals or students who wish to gain an overview of this subject….I enjoyed reading this book and it literally gave me much food for thought? - Early Years

?This book is a welcome addition and the contributors should be congratulated on the scope and depth they manage to achieve...this book is an interesting read, dealing with a topical, yet complex issue? - Journal of Early Childhood Research

?Food plays a huge part in our lives, and this book looks holistically at its influence, including our emotional as well as physical wellbeing. It provides useful facts on diet and healthy eating guidelines for children under five, school age children, adults and pregnant mothers...There is advice on promoting positive attitudes towards food in an early years setting, along with practical advice and case studies to help practitioners promote heatlhy eating in their settings? - Early Years Update

?This highly readable, thoroughly researched book explores food and eating in an historical, cultural and psychological context and, as public concern about children?s nutrition rises, its publication is timely. Food and Health in Early Childhood is a comprehensive, clearly written text enriched with case studies and pertinent reflective activities to consolidate learning? - Angela Underdown, Associate Professor, Early Childhood Studies, University of Warwick

The media interest surrounding children, food and nutrition continues to influence policy and practice in early years settings, and food and eating is of fundamental importance to early childhood practice. Not only does food contribute to health, in terms of nutrition it?s also a vital part of a child?s emotional and socio-cultural experience that is linked to their growing sense of well-being and identity.

This book gives you a comprehensive overview of food and eating in the early years, covering the following:

-nutrition

-policy development

-health inequalities

-food, culture and identity

-food and emotion

-healthy eating guidelines

-promoting healthy eating in the early years

-multi-disciplinary working in relation to young children?s nutrition

Each chapter includes case studies, links to useful websites, activities and suggestions for further reading. An interactive approach from the reader is encouraged throughout the book.

Aimed at all early years practitioners, it will be of particular interest to those studying for Early Childhood Studies? degrees and those studying for EYPS. Other professionals and students with an interest in this area (teachers, health visitors, dieticians) will also find it useful.

Chapter 1

Policy Development

This chapter looks at the development of public policy in relation to children’s food and eating. It charts the move from the view that what children eat is the private concern of the family, with philanthropic support for the most impoverished, to one of a universal service in the mid-1940s. The chapter also discusses the near reversal of such policy in the 1980s and the recent moves to seeing policy as part of broader strategies aimed at safeguarding children’s futures, such as health promotion strategies and policies aimed at ecological sustainability.

Practice in relation to young children’s food and eating does not occur in a vacuum. Public policy provides the framework within which practice is embedded and reflects cultural attitudes towards food and eating; something that is looked at in detail in Chapter 6 of this book. But public policy is not static. It changes according to historical and political circumstances, which emphasize different roles and responsibilities of the state, the family and children, and has changed as anxiety over children’s diets has moved from alarm over lack of food to concerns about the excess and nutritional composition of the food in children’s diets (Gustafsson, 2003). Much of the chapter charts the development of the school-meals service. However, provision of food and drink for children under 5 years in day care or nursery education has been less subject to state intervention, possibly highlighting the lack of a universal, state provided, full day-care and education service for children under 5 in the UK. Yet this is a crucial part of practice as an increasing number of young children receive their three main meals a day in such settings (Caroline Walker Trust, 2006).

This chapter aims to trace the development of policy in relation to young children’s food and eating, highlighting the following key periods:

• Philanthropic concern (pre-1906)
• A residual service (1906–Second World War)
• A universal service (1944–79)
• A return to the market (1980–96)
• Safeguarding futures (1997 onwards)

Philanthropic concern (pre-1906)

The advent of compulsory schooling in 1870 highlighted the extent of malnutrition in the school population (Rose and Falconer, 1992). Passmore and Harris (2004) point out that school-meals provision began to be argued for on education as opposed to health grounds, because there were concerns that children would be unable to benefit from the state education system owing to malnutrition. The early childhood pioneer, Margaret McMillan, believed it was indefensible to expect a hungry child to learn, and focused upon the health inequalities that existed between the rich and the poor, saying, ‘Below every strike, concealed behind legislation of every order, there is this fact – the higher nutrition of the favoured few compared with the balked childhood of the majority’ (McMillan, quoted in Steedman, 1990: 15).

This echoes broader concerns, which ultimately lead to the development of school-meals provision. The 1899–1902 Boer War highlighted the number of recruits who were unfit to fight owing to malnutrition. This resulted in the setting up of a Royal Commission on Physical Deterioration, which was also a prime mover in the development of the 1906 Education (Provision of Meals) Act. Young (2002) also points out how the school meals service developed as a response to the dire social conditions experienced by the growing industrialized city populations. He discusses the experience in Scotland where, in the 1870s, there were Day Industrial Schools that were known as ‘Feeding Schools’, which provided at least one hot meal a day. If parents could not pay, the cost was met by charitable institutions. It should also be noted that in 1879 Manchester was one of the first cities in England to provide meals for poor and malnourished children.

The growth in the public provision of food for poor children is indicative of the way that philanthropic support was beginning to be challenged as the foremost means of alleviating poverty. Young (2002) notes that at the beginning of the twentieth century the burgeoning Labour movement and working-class, socialist agitation had led the then Liberal government to introduce policies such as National Insurance. The introduction of the school-meals service could arguably be seen as part of other welfare reforms of the period. Moreover, there was a feeling that school-meals provision could also have social advantages such as inculcating good manners and cleanliness, both deemed as deficient in the working-class child (Young, 2002).

Young (2002: 8–9) summarizes the key factors that led to the introduction of statutory school-meals provision as:

• An inducement to increase attendance at school
• A mechanism for increasing the stature and improving the health of the population
• A means of reducing crime and antisocial behaviour
• A means of inculcating good habits and manners
• A prerequisite for children to take full advantage of the education being provided
• A means of reducing the ill effects of privation on children during war-time
• A free service for those identified as most needy.

However, it is important to stress that despite the multitude of reasons that led to the development of the school-meals service, some people were strongly against it. The provision of meals was believed to usurp traditional family responsibility and the duty each family had to nurture their own children (Gustafsson, 2003).

A residual service (1906–Second World War)

Initially, the school-meals service developed as a service for the most impoverished children. The Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906 gave statutory authority to local education authorities (LEAs) to provide school meals. However we should be careful not to confuse this with a duty to provide meals for children. Until the Second World War, only 25,000 meals per year were provided even though there were 6 million children in school (Rose and Falconer, 1992).

Children who received a free dinner were often given a lesser quality dinner than those who paid and sometimes even ate separately (Passmore and Harris, 2004). The emphasis was on the quantity of food as opposed to the quality of the school dinner, as can be seen in this infant menu supplied by the Alexandra Trust for London County Council in 1906 (you can view it in full on http://learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/britain1906-18/g2/cs2/g2cs2s3.htm) an extract of which is below.

Dinner menus for infants

• Stewed beef or mutton, suet roll, potatoes and bread
• Beef stewed with peas, suet roll, potatoes and bread
• Mutton stewed with haricot beans, steamed potatoes, bread and suet pudding
• Rice, tapioca, macaroni or barley pudding with two slices of sultana bread and butter
• Stew – very fine mince
• Baked custard, with bread and butter
• Savoury custard, with bread and butter

Breakfast menus

• Cocoa, porridge and two slices of bread and butter
• Cocoa, three slices of bread and dripping
• Hot milk and bread, two slices of bread and jam or marmalade

Reflection point

Look at the menu above. Does this menu reflect the kinds of food on offer to children at nursery or school today? In what ways does it differ?

Sharp (1992) notes that at the start of the First World War (1914), central government gave a 50 per cent grant for school meals, whereas previously money had come from local taxation within an expenditure limit set by central government. This resulted in a dramatic increase in the numbers of children receiving a meal, from 160,000 to 500,000. This grant was cut in the post-First World War period, which resulted in lower take-up of the provision, and in the 1930s there was increased targeting of school-meals provision to those deemed most needy, in order to direct scarce resources most efficiently. It was also during this time that the Milk Marketing Board introduced the School Milk Scheme, which ensured that poor and malnourished children received a third of a pint of free milk daily and those who were able to afford it were able to receive it at cost price (Passmore and Harris, 2004).

Activity

For those children who received a free school meal, this had a significant impact on their health. Look at the National Archive web site (see http://learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/britain1906-18/g2/cs2/g2cs24b.htm). You will see a graph that charts the increase and decrease in weight of a group of children in 1907. Take a few moments to look at how the weight of these children decreased during the school holidays. It serves as a stark reminder that malnourishment due to lack of food was a real concern for families living in poverty during this period.

Whilst this period of school-meals reform is characterized by its concern for the most impoverished children, the development of the school-meals service was also indicative of the increase in state interest and intervention in the private lives of the population (Gustafsson, 2003).

A universal service (1944–79)

The Second World War heralded a dramatic shift in policy. It is important to see this shift as part of the wider package of welfare reforms introduced in the 1940s such as the development of the National Health Service. Rose and Falconer (1992) highlight how the development of the welfare state in the post-war period emphasized the importance of collective, free provision of services as an expression of social solidarity.

Sharp (1992) argues that there were four key factors that impacted upon school-meals policy in this period:

1. Domestic rationing, brought in as a result of food shortages, did not take into account the particular needs and requirements of children. School meals were a way of ensuring children got a nourishing meal each day.
2. Wartime bombing led to large-scale movements of the population, such as the evacuation of children. This led to the development of large civic catering facilities.
3. Women were needed to work as part of the war effort, so school meals were seen as a key strategy in maximizing women’s employment because women might be encouraged into employment in the comforting knowledge that their children were being fed while they were away.
4. A new policy of Family Allowance had been developed and this benefit included free school meals and milk as accompanying benefits.

In 1941 central government gave a 95 per cent grant to LEAs in order to fund the provision of school meals and there was a national campaign to expand the service (Passmore and Harris, 2004). Whilst it might be easy to skim over figures like this, it is important to think carefully about what they signify: central government grants for the funding of the service on this scale were unprecedented and are an expression of the importance that was placed on meals provision at that time. In the same year, the Board of Education Circular 1571 set the first nutritional standards for school meals. These specified the quantities of protein and fat the meal should provide, reflecting the influence of rationing (Passmore and Harris, 2004).

The 1944 (Butler) Education Act, section 49, altered the provision of school meals to children. Significantly, LEAs were now obliged to provide milk and a meal for all pupils who wanted one, in both primary and secondary schools and at a cost of no more than the ingredients unless entitled to free meals. It also legislated that post-war school buildings had to have a kitchen, which would enable meals to be cooked that were suitable for the children’s main meal of the day ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Policy Development
• 2 Nutrition, Health and Development
• 3 Healthy Eating Guidelines
• 4 Health Inequalities
• 5 Food, Eating and Emotion
• 6 Food, Culture and Identity
• 7 Promoting Healthy Eating in Early Childhood Settings
• 8 Multidisciplinary Working
• Glossary
• References
• Index