Care Courses Blog

Are you an ear­ly child­hood pro­fes­sion­al look­ing for ways to help par­ents plan healthy lunch­es for preschool­ers? Lunch is an impor­tant part of a child’s day. In fact, lunch can make up almost one half of the aver­age child’s nutri­tion­al intake per day. How­ev­er, offer­ing unhealthy food choic­es at lunch can neg­a­tive­ly affect children’s abil­i­ty to learn, build rela­tion­ships, and get essen­tial nutri­ents. By shar­ing infor­ma­tion and easy recipes, you can empow­er par­ents to make and pack healthy lunch­es and snacks for their chil­dren. Engag­ing par­ents in a dis­cus­sion about nutri­tion can help rein­force children’s healthy eat­ing habits, and pos­i­tive­ly impact the whole fam­i­ly. In this blog we will discuss: 

• How to Pro­mote Nutri­tion­al Awareness 
• Foods to Avoid
• Recipes for easy to pack, healthy lunch­es for preschoolers

Promoting Nutritional Awareness

Approach the top­ic of healthy lunch choic­es respect­ful­ly and in con­sid­er­a­tion of the fac­tors that may influ­ence fam­i­lies’ deci­sions, such as 

• Are they unin­formed about children’s nutri­tion­al needs? 
• Do they lack time to pre­pare healthy meals and snacks? 
• Do they have lim­it­ed access to a gro­cery store that has a vari­ety of healthy options? 

Begin con­ver­sa­tions by acknowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges par­ents face. Start with a state­ment like, “We under­stand how busy morn­ings can be, and we appre­ci­ate the effort you put into ensur­ing your child has a meal for the day.”

Gen­tly empha­size the role of nutri­tion in children’s growth, devel­op­ment, and learn­ing. You might say, “Nutri­tious meals play a cru­cial role in sup­port­ing children’s ener­gy, focus, and over­all well-being. When chil­dren have bal­anced, healthy meals, they tend to be more atten­tive and engaged in activities.”

Con­verse­ly, share spe­cif­ic obser­va­tions with­out plac­ing blame. For instance, “We’ve noticed that when chil­dren have sug­ary foods, they some­times expe­ri­ence ener­gy crash­es lat­er in the day. On the oth­er hand, those who have a bal­anced meal seem to have more sus­tained ener­gy and attention.”

Offer resources, such as a list of easy-to-make healthy lunch ideas. Share recipes that include ingre­di­ents that can be eas­i­ly found at local mar­kets. If pack­aged and processed foods are the main type of foods par­ents have avail­able, share key ingre­di­ents to look for on the labels to help them rec­og­nize the most nutri­tious options. 

Make nutri­tion a core top­ic in your cur­ricu­lum and healthy food a part of every day. Host par­ent-teacher nights and show­case exam­ples of healthy lunches. 

Above all, let par­ents know you are their part­ner in ensur­ing their children’s well-being in every way. 

Foods to Avoid

Encour­age par­ents to avoid pack­ing fried food, chips, and high­ly-processed cheese and meat prod­ucts in their children’s lunch­es. Also encour­age them to avoid foods and drinks with added sugar. 

Edu­cate par­ents about the impor­tance of read­ing nutri­tion labels to help avoid “Sneaky Snacks.” Sneaky snacks are foods that seem like they should be healthy, but aren’t. They often have mis­lead­ing names, claims, and mar­ket­ing mes­sag­ing. They include:

• items that are not whole grain but adver­tise they are made from “wheat,” 
• fruit roll ups that have the word “fruit” on the pack­ag­ing but are full of chem­i­cals and added sugar,
• fruit-fla­vored drinks, 
• fla­vored sweet­ened milk drinks,
• veg­gie straws. (Peo­ple often think veg­gie straws are healthy because they’re made of veg­eta­bles, but they lack fiber and pro­tein and are prac­ti­cal­ly devoid of nutrients.) 
• pota­to chips, rice cakes, baked chips, and pretzels

Thank­ful­ly, most sneaky snacks have a nutri­tion label on the back show­ing their true col­ors. Nutri­tion labels are our friends!

It should be not­ed that many ready-made “lunch­able” type options, while con­ve­nient, are not healthy. Many con­tain processed cheese, meat, high amounts of sodi­um and preser­v­a­tives, and high-sug­ar desserts. High­ly-processed food has been shown to have detri­men­tal health effects includ­ing weight gain, meta­bol­ic alter­ations, and dis­ease. Addi­tion­al­ly, it can be tempt­ing for chil­dren to only eat the dessert from these lunch­es, leav­ing the rest of the food behind. For these rea­sons, we rec­om­mend that you avoid these types of ready-made options.

The Nation­al Resource Cen­ter for Health and Safe­ty in Child Care and Ear­ly Edu­ca­tion rec­om­mends that facil­i­ties have food avail­able to sup­ple­ment the children’s food brought from home in case the food brought from home does not meet their nutri­tion­al needs. 

How to Help Parents Plan Lunches for Preschoolers — Lunch Box Recipes 

A nutri­tious lunch plays a vital role in children’s abil­i­ty to focus and thrive. Encour­age par­ents to include items from the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories to ensure they are pack­ing a bal­anced meal: 

Engage fam­i­lies in mini-work­shops about nutri­tion where these sim­ple recipes can be sam­pled. If your pro­gram has a gar­den, find some recipes that can be made from the veg­eta­bles grown by the children! 

Addi­tion­al­ly, encour­age par­ents to select healthy bev­er­ages for their children’s lunch box­es. The best bev­er­age choic­es for lunch are water or unfla­vored milk (dairy or for­ti­fied plant-based). Serv­ing pri­mar­i­ly water or unfla­vored milk with lunch­es and snacks not only helps chil­dren estab­lish the habit of drink­ing healthy bev­er­ages but also great­ly ben­e­fits their den­tal health! 

Want to Learn More About Nutrition and How to Help Parents Plan Lunches for Preschoolers? 

Take our course, Nutri­tion in Ear­ly Child­hood: Shap­ing a Healthy Future, to learn more about children’s nutri­tion­al needs and to access help­ful par­ent hand­outs. For addi­tion­al tips on pro­mot­ing children’s devel­op­ment of healthy habits, take our course Fun and Fit­ness: Address­ing Child­hood Obesity. 

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