Food and Health Guidelines - Torfaen Family Information Service

3. 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. 27 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 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:
2