Newcastle researchers land $4.9 million grant to improve childcare nutrition

Newy 87.8 FM – A $4.9 million research project led by University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute researchers will work to improve food and nutrition in Australian childcare services.

The project, funded through a Medical Research Future Fund grant from the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care, aims to help the more than 90 per cent of Australian early childhood education and care services struggling to meet national nutrition guidelines.

The research team will work with 10 NSW Health Promotion Units, with the potential to influence the nutritional quality of more than 500,000 meals served to Australian children every week.

University of Newcastle behavioural scientist Professor Luke Wolfenden, of HMRI's Population Health Research program, said improving children's diets early in life was one of the most powerful ways to protect long-term health.

"Diet in early childhood shapes lifelong eating habits and has a major influence on the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and some cancers later in life," Professor Wolfenden said.

Currently fewer than 10 per cent of Australian childcare services provide food that fully meets nutrition standards, and less than 5 per cent of children consume the recommended serves of vegetables.

Co-investigator Associate Professor Rachel Sutherland said the project would test strategies through a large-scale series of randomised trials, with Health Promotion Units each undertaking two improvement cycles to generate up to 20 trials over four years.

The strategies will be co-designed with local childcare services and health professionals, creating what researchers say will be the largest dataset ever collected on implementing childcare nutrition guidelines.

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