Healthy nutrition for children: a Fijian experience in teacher training ...

By Diana Hurford and Kerry Kirk, Children?s Services trainers with the Australia-Pacific Technical College in Fiji

In a country such as Fiji with a large population of very young children, good nutrition is vital. One place it can most effectively be taught is in early-childhood learning centres?kindergartens. This means the future teachers of very young children need to be made aware of what constitutes good nutrition and of how children and their parents can apply this information to their daily life.

Inside the ?play and information? tent set up by APTC Children?s Services students at Nawaka, near Nadi, for Early Childhood Week. Beyond the fun and games there was the serious purpose of emphasising good nutrition for young children. Photo: APTC

The Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC) has a key role in this, through its training programs for early-childhood teachers. Funded by the Australian Government, the APTC runs Children?s Services courses for a large number of early-childhood teachers, both those who are studying to take up Early Childhood Learning (ECL) as a career and those already working in the field who are eager to increase their skills and knowledge.

In Fiji, the APTC?s School of Hospitality and Community Services offers Children?s Services courses at its refurbished training centre in Suva, and at the APTC campus in Namaka on the west coast of Viti Levu, Fiji?s most populous island. In both places good nutrition is an important unit in the course.

The course covers a lot on nutrition, including from five different aspects:

• Planning suitable food and drink combinations for children and encouraging children to develop healthy eating habits
• The ways in which adults such as teachers and parents can be good role models for children, and themselves make healthy food choices The means by which children and families can be encouraged to eat healthily and, just as importantly, practise physical activity for healthy growth and development. This is in line with the Fiji Ministry of Health?s Support Fiji initiative.
• Details of the various food groups, their value in a balanced diet and the planning of menus for children to ensure balanced dietary requirements, and
• The problem of rising obesity in some young children, and the way to combat this through better food choices and increased activity.

These five aspects of training in good nutrition are exemplified in practical activity. There are a number of ways in which we demonstrate in group activities what the students learn in the classroom. These include initiatives such as organising a ?dental health and healthy eating week? and developing a nutrition policy for use in kindergartens. Parents are also educated and encouraged to ensure the snacks
children bring with them from home are nourishing and healthy.

The actual preparation of healthy food in the classroom?dishes such as vegetable soups and fruit salads?is also of value. It helps students understand how good nutrition can be incorporated in a regular diet. Equally valuable is the preparation and enjoyment during? a special lunch together with trainers, students, parents and young children. This is not only a popular way of demonstrating the principles of good nutrition. it? also addresses the question of cultural tradition in food. The Fijian culinary tradition is in many respects quite different from Western cuisine. The special lunch is one opportunity to talk about the nutritional appropriateness of traditional eating in a Fijian home.

Children?s drinks are a whole area of nutrition in themselves. APTC Children?s Services students are taught that the best drink for children is water.

Early-learning students took advantage of Fiji?s Early Childhood Week recently to take their message about good nutrition out into the community. During the week?s events in Nawaka village on the eastern edge of Nadi the students set up a ?play and information? tent and handed out brochures to parents about good nutrition for their children. Students and children played together with toys the students had either made or borrowed from APTC?s toy library.

Everyone joined in with great enthusiasm. The APTC devised a ?healthy food pyramid? game and healthy food puzzles that greatly intrigued?the children and parents present. They used puppetry and dramatic play to illustrate the best food to eat for good growth, led the children in singing songs about food and handed out free slices of fruit in the tent?s ?fruit kitchen?. It all went well and the students feel they managed to do a lot of good.

The APTC students? and trainers? contribution to Early Childhood Week in Fiji clearly made groups of parents and others (who obviously want to do the best for their children but are not themselves dieticians) aware of which foods, among those available in Fiji, are best for young children?s healthy nutrition. It?s a good example of how the APTC, committed to bringing benefit to the countries in which it operates, can take its message beyond the formal confines of classroom teaching to where the people really are.

The Australia-Pacific Technical College?is funded by the Australian Government and managed through AusAID.

About the authors:

Diana Hurford

Diana Hurford has had 25 years? experience in early-childhood education. In that time she has held a wide range of posts, among them family day-care provider, fieldworker and training co-ordinator, subject specialist in a DECS project and assistant director of a children?s centre. In 2007 Diana was offered the position of lecturer with the TafeSA Noarlunga child studies team and from 2008 co-ordinated the vocational placement program. Diana is currently on leave from TafeSA as she trains Pacific islands students in the APTC Children?s Services program.?She has a special interest in behaviour guidance and in influencing ethical thinking in support of children?s wellbeing.

Kerry Kirk

Kerry Kirk has been the Early Childhood Specialty Teacher for the APTC in Suva, Fiji, for the last 18 months. She delivers the Certificate program in Children?s Services to local and international scholarship-holders from across the Pacific. She has had extensive experience both in the early-childhood sector and in adult education. Kerry has worked as manager of health and community services programs for a large TAFE training college in Melbourne and as head of department, Early Childhood, for a TAFE university in Melbourne.

As an advocate of high-quality early-childhood education, Kerry believes that providing the teachers of young children with a solid understanding of early-childhood development and learning is of great benefit to the children themselves. Kerry is a member of various early-childhood organisations and has attended global conferences and seminars in many areas of the world.

Source: http://ausaid.govspace.gov.au/2012/11/14/healthy-nutrition-for-children-a-fijian-experience-in-teacher-training/

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