Healthy Eating, Safety, and Inclusion in Early Years Assignment Example

Introduction

Healthy eating, safety, and inclusion are crucial aspects of early years development. From providing balanced nutrition to promoting equality and safeguarding practices, practitioners play a vital role in shaping children’s growth.

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Unit 1

Explain what is meant by healthy eating

Healthy eating means eating foods that are good for the body and that provide nutrients that are necessary for the body to be active, grow, and stay healthy. For children, it has a key role because it provides them with all they need in terms of physical and mental growth.

Other important food groups are fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and dairy, and restrict or avoid foods that contain high sugar or salt or have bad fats. In the early years’ settings, nutrition is valued as one of the important aspects of young children’s development, and so, an attempt to prepare and provide children with balanced meals (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 3). Teaching children about healthy eating at an early age ensures that the correct habits are developed and maintained and prevents young children from becoming obese, developing diabetes, high blood pressure, or any other diseases associated with eating unhealthy foods.

Describe food and drink requirements in relation to current frameworks.

In England, they have a learning framework for the early years known as the early years foundation stage also referred to as EYFS and according to EYFS, there are certain food and drink requirements for early years settings. According to the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage), children are required to be offered proper, good, and healthy food that is nutritional, and clean and safe drinking water must always be accessible. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, mid-morning snacks, mid-afternoon snacks, and quick bites must address children’s special nutrient requirements dietary restrictions, and restrictions such as those because of food allergies, cultural/religious beliefs, or practices. Practitioners are also expected to prepare and present foods in a hygienic manner and with the right portion sizes for various ages (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 5,7). The physical health and well-being of children alongside the need for proper nutrition for their overall development is another requirement of this framework and staff must be knowledgeable and skilled in this.

Explain the impacts of poor diet on children's health and development in the:

Short term

In the short-term negative effects on children are as follows. A bad diet can have several damaging effects within the first seconds, a child feels sleepy, can severely pay attention, and has a weakened immune system. If the child is not healthy and is not taking important vitamins and minerals then the child can easily catch infections and fall sick (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 3). This can result from poor nutrition whereby students fail to have balanced diets which has an impact on their brains and thus have poor concentration when in class. Also, children who have poor diets may shift their moods, have poor temper and behaviors which do not allow them fit into society and also emotionally.

Long term

In the long term, some of the chronic diseases that may be associated with poor nutrition in children include obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension. Chronic malnutrition means that the child fails to grow well due to lack of nutrients in his/her food leading to small statured growth and weaker bones (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 250). Also, unhealthy diets developed from the childhood are carried forward to adulthood leading to other health problems in the rest of the lifetime. Cognitive development may also be affected thus disallowing the child to perform well in school and limiting her or his future employment prospects. It is indicated that the long-term effects of poor diet include poor quality lifestyle, fluctuating moods, and social problems.

Summaries current legislation and guidelines relating to the health and safety of children.

The targets for the health and safety of children in their early years are set down by several acts of legislation and guidelines in the country. The first is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which aims at providing early-year providers with safe environments to accommodate the children along with the staff (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 89).. There is room for safe play space, safe use of equipment, and even marking down procedures to follow in the event of an accident.

The Welfare of the Children Act 1989 and 2004 revolves around the wellbeing of the children with the law stating that the childcare givers should enhance the welfare and protection of the children. It provided the legislation with the awareness of the need to protect a child from harm better known as safeguarding. Child protection procedures are mandatory in every early years’ provision and practitioners have to follow procedures on how to spot signs of abuse or neglect (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 88).In addition, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework also features a section on health and safety, which further lists the standards that have to be complied with. These are the right staff-child ratio, risk assessment, and availability of fresh drinking water for the children. Also, for health, well-being, emotional, physical, and creative development, the EYFS focuses on hygiene practices such as safe food handling and management of diseases.

The guidelines include the Food Safety Act 1990 and Food Information Regulations 2014 while controlling food hygiene and allergic information to make children have enough nutrition and a healthy diet (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 53). ’Fresh food’ is essential to every canteen service, food handlers must be trained in food hygiene, and identifying customers with allergy risks can be fatal.

Furthermore, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002 makes certain that early years settings exercise safe control of unsafe substances such as cleaning materials. These regulations also make it necessary that any setting that may have any material that is potentially dangerous to the children must conduct a risk assessment on them to ensure that no child is exposed to such a substance (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 106). Thus these legislations and frameworks ensure that children are safe and healthy through the legal provision of secure safe and hygienically appropriate settings for their young needs.

Analyse how legislation and guidelines for health and safety inform day to day work with children.

Health and safety is a major area of practice in early years setting and this is governed by legislation and guidelines which include the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 5). These frameworks help in ensuring that children’s surroundings are safe and they help the practitioners in avoiding any mishap, and in promoting and maintaining the general well-being of children.

These laws are the basis of implementing risk assessment, which is a necessary procedure to be conducted from time to time for the establishment of possible risks. For example, play structures, play equipment and play activities are evaluated to determine their suitability for the interaction, and alterations are made when required (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 6). To avoid spreading of disease and illness associated with food, practitioners are forced to adhere to rules and regulation on safe handling of food preparation and hygiene as stipulated in the Food Safety Act of 1990.

Staff to Child Ratios in the EYFS is a component of EYFS that ensures adequate supervision of kids at all times reducing possibility of accidents. As a safety measure, all staffs have to undertake first aid certification so that in case of any injury or health complications the remedy can be done immediately (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 173). Furthermore, children safeguarding policies based on the England legislation of Children Act 1989 help practitioners to be very observant of the children under their care especially in cases of child abuse or neglect. Such guidelines ensure that implementation of developmental goals is done daily in a secure and healthy environment for children. Consequently, the major principles of health and safety legislation apply to each care activity, which has been observed and maintained in this context.

Unit 2

Identify legislation, policies and procedures relating to equality, diversity and inclusive practice.

In the UK, The Equality Act 2010 is the main legislation that addresses equality, diversity, and inclusion in early year’s settings. This act gathers existing equality legislation and prevents discrimination of people on specific grounds such as age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation (Tassoni.P, 2014, pg 124). Also, the early years setting must implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 which entitles the children’s right to education and right to protection against discrimination (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 125).

There should be specific policies and practices that must be implemented to address and ensure compliance to these laws including explaining how they will eradicate discrimination and encourage equality. As part of executive assurances of quality and equitable service provisions to all children, these policies include equal opportunity and anti-discrimination (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 126). Policies and practices of the workplaces are based on the contemporary legislation and established codes of practice, also, policies provide guidance and structure of workplaces with understanding and adopting of diversity.

Explain the roles and responsibilities of the early year's practitioner in supporting equality, diversity and inclusive practice.

The key workers in the early years settings are responsible for countering policies such as equality, diversity, and inclusion. It entails reporting the setting’s policies and procedures, treating all children with dignity, and also providing the children with a nondiscriminatory learning environment. It is also important that practitioners respect, embrace, and cherish children’s differences, including their individuality and cultural identity and origins, and facilitate access of each child to everything within the setting (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 128). This means that there is a need to develop a child-centered model of activities whether in childcare or class where exercises promote decisions and autonomy.

Also, it is important to notice that practitioners play a role of defending against prejudice and encouraging tolerance towards diversity. This can be done with the provision of planned resources that reflect a diverse society and ensure that children are availed of the opportunities to understand who they are in a safe and positive environment (Tassoni.P, 2014, Pg 129,130). Currently, practitioner’s behavior should be tolerant of diversity and the need to observe the diversity policy.

Reference List

Journal

Tassoni.P, 2014, Early Years Educator FOR THE WORK-BASED LEARNER CACHE Level 3.