As children get back to nursery settings following the long summer holiday, the age old decision about whether they have a packed lunch or eat a nursery lunch needs to be made.
Last year, Essex County Council Public Health commissioned ‘Nourishing our Future’, researched by Anglia Ruskin University to explore food and drink provision and consumption in early years settings in Essex and identified opportunities for improvement.
The research followed increased national awareness of the importance of early years nutrition following increasing childhood obesity and tooth decay in 4–5-year-olds, leading to hospital attendance, poor mental and physical health.
The Nourishing Our Future (NOF) research identified managing children's food preferences – including an increasing reluctance to try new foods – and the cost of food as the biggest obstacles faced by early years educators in Essex. Some settings even resorted to giving up providing meals and offering snacks instead due to the diverse range of likes, dislikes and allergies displayed by children attending their nursery.
In Essex childhood overweight and obesity affects 21% of reception aged children (4-5 years old). Essex County Council Public Health recognises that early years settings hold significant potential to encourage healthy eating habits amongst children and in association with the Essex Healthy Weight Strategy Our Appetite for Change acknowledge that children and young people are a priority cohort, and early years are a priority setting
Over the summer, a series of events about food and nutrition sensory education have been carried out in 12 settings in Essex by national charity TastEd to help early years settings offer a range of food which is palatable, nutritious and fund for children to try so their choice of foods they will try expands.
October 2025
I was very pleased to be able to see Nourishing Our Future in action at the Butterflies Montessori setting in Warley this month. TastEd was helping the children try new foods and eat more healthily and seemed to be doing an excellent job in encouraging some very young children to try pomegranates and orange slices. It was good to meet so many people from Butterflies and from the Nourishing Our Future and TastEd team to hear about their work.
