This document discusses creating positive mealtime environments in childcare settings. It identifies benefits such as children learning eating skills through social interaction. Key aspects of positive mealtime environments include serving healthy foods family-style to promote choice, self-regulation, and reducing picky eating. The document provides examples of supportive versus controlling statements and introduces the Building Mealtime Environments and Relationships resource to evaluate mealtime practices. Participants are encouraged to consider steps to improve mealtime environments and overcome potential barriers.

1. Mealtime Practices in
Childcare
Developed by Emily Seferovich

2. Objectives
Objective #1: Participants will be able to identify the benefits
of creating a positive mealtime environment in child care
Objective #2: Participants will be able to define primary
features of a positive mealtime environment
Objective #3: Participants will begin developing a plan for
improving the mealtime environment of a child care program.

3. Mealtime experiences are defined as much by
the conditions meals are eaten in
as the food itself.

4. A few of the many benefits of
Positive Mealtime Environments
Children learn eating skills and dining manners largely
between 3-6 years of age. Young children benefit from using
various utensils and interacting with companions to help
establish these skills.
Attentive caregivers can help children identify their level of
satiety, which promotes the development of self-regulatory
skills.
Caregivers can promote the development of food-oriented
vocabulary, which can help children to better communicate
their wants and needs in a variety of settings.
Allowing children to choose the foods that they do and do not
want to eat in a family-style setting helps to reduce the
development of picky eating habits.
If health-supportive foods are served and personal choice is
encouraged, children will learn about healthy eating behaviors.

5. Ways to create
Positive Mealtime Environments
Provide health-supportive, seasonal foods that adhere to the CACFP guidelines
Promote individual choice and avoid controlling feeding practices
Provide variety in food offered, optimally in a family-style meal setting
Verbally prompt children to identify their physical feelings of hunger or satiety
Accept if a child is full before finishing their plate
Encourage children to experiment with a variety of foods, mostly novel forms of produce
Model consumption of new foods by having caregivers try them alongside the children
Encourage portion control by providing a finite amount of food to all children in the first serving
Sit with the children to encourage positive conversation and interaction
Sit with the children to model healthy eating practices
If asked for multiple portions, prompt the children to identify with physical feelings, and provide foods that are more filling
and nutrient dense (i.e. fruits/vegetables before starches such as bread or potato)

7. The format in which Food is Served
makes a BIG difference
How do you serve food at your center?
Pre-plated meals?
Cafeteria Style?
Family Style?
Other?
Family Style meal are considered the
best practice in child care because
children are given the greatest
amount of choice over what they eat

8. The Value of Choice
Allowing children to develop autonomy and a unique nutritional identity is one of the many benefits of
Family Style meals. Similarly, the way we communicate with children is also instrumental in
embodying that same choice-centered approach
Ask yourself which of the following statements you find more appropriate:
Example 1
1: “Yum! The yogurt and berries look like they taste sweet. Would you like to try some?”
2: “Even if you don’t want to eat it, I need you to take a bite.”
Example 2
1: “When we run out of bread, if you’re still hungry you can try some green beans and fruit.”
2: “Eat your green beans and fruit now. You’ve had enough bread already.”
Example 3
1: “Would you like to have carrots and dip or cheese and apple slices?
2: “You’ve not touched your salad, and you need to try some.”

9. The BMER Resource
Building Mealtime Environments and Relationship (BMER) is a resource developed by
childhood nutrition experts to help caregivers evaluate and augment current programs in
place to create positive, health-supportive mealtime environments
BMER consists of the following 12 unique rubrics that correlate to mealtime practice topic
areas:
1)Equipment, 2) Mealtime Environment, 3) Sanitation at the Table, 4) The Food, 5)
Preventing Choking, 6) Food Intake, 7) Social and Emotional Development, 8)
Mealtime Motor Skills, 9) Conversations (Listening and Speaking Skills), 10)
Routines and Schedules, 11)Adult Practices at Mealtime, and 12) Community Building
BMER is downloadable as a PDF and can be used to illustrate areas of strength and areas
for improvement regarding the mealtime environment used at your facility.

10. Excerpt from BMER Resource

11. Excerpt from BMER Resource

12. Taking steps forward : A few key questions
What do you feel can be easily done in
the present to support positive
mealtime environments for your kids?
What do you feel should be done, but
would be difficult to accomplish?
What are the barriers to making
some of these shifts?
What could be done to overcome these
barriers?

13. Open Discussion

14. Useful Resources:
(Work Cited)
Building Mealtime Environments and Relationships (An
Inventory for Feeding Young Children in Group Settings)
Mealtime Memo for Child Care (Memorable Mealtimes:
Putting it all Together)
CACFP Menu Planning Guide**
Article Preventing Childhood Obesity: Strategies to
Help Preschoolers Develop Healthy Eating Habits