According to the Missouri Eat Smart Childhood obesity and Missouri’s Eat Smart Guidelines for Child Care, “Overweight is now the most nutritional disease of children. Preschool children who are overweight are almost 5 times more likely to be overweight as young adults.”
Missouri Eat Smart Guidelines for Childcare also concludes that children may get 50%-75% of daily food needs in childcare. This is why it is vital that childcare programs serve nutritional balance meals. Here are some tips for serving healthier meals in your childcare program:
Breakfast
- Limit sweetened cereals served
- choose cereal that contain more fiber
- limit sweet breakfast items
- provide more whole grain foods
- serve more fruit and less juice
- provide low-fat or skim milk
Lunch
- Limit the processed foods
- More raw fruits & vegetables
- Use low-fat or fat-free salad dressing
- Serve whole grain breads
- offer low-fat milk as a drink
Snack
- Limit sweet snacks
- provide protein snacks (peanut butter, yogurt, etc)
- 100% Juice or raw fruit
- whole grain crackers
- raw fruits or veggies
Thanks in advance for helping to reduce the Childhood obesity rate in America by simply making healthier changes in your menus and also by educating parents.
If you would like to receive more nutritional resources, please Download a Copy of the Healthy Child Care Menus ebook.
With Healthy Kids in Mind,
Shiketa Morgan
The Child Care Business Owner Institute 
Leave a Reply