Food and Nutrition Guidelines - Barnsley Council Online

5. Children 1-4 years
Food groups
Eat Well - Getting the Balance Right
reproduced with permission of the Food Standards Agency
One of the basic principles to ensure healthy
eating is to eat a wide variety of foods. A varied
diet is also associated with better health. To
enable children under five to establish good
eating habits it is recommended that they
are offered 3 main meals plus 2-3 nutritious
snacks each day. Continually eating/grazing on
snacks and drinks can lead to obesity, dental
caries and a poor nutritional intake, and is
to be avoided. Early Years settings provide
an ideal opportunity for children to become
accustomed to a regular eating pattern.
To ensure a balanced diet, a variety of foods
should be offered from the four main food
groups and occasionally from group 5. It is
important that foods offered to children as
snacks are also varied. Offering different
textures and colours helps maintain a child’s
interest in food and mealtimes. The food groups
are as follows:
Group 1: Milk and Dairy
Group 2: Meat, fish and alternatives
Group 3: Bread, other cereals and potatoes
Group 4: Fruit and vegetables
Group 5: Foods containing fat and/or sugar
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