Health & Nutrition

The Nutrition Component

Sure Start program standards govern the nutrition component of the Sure Start Program Component Plan. These standards are designed to do the following:

• Provide lunch and snacks at no cost to the student that will help meet the student’s daily nutritional needs, recognizing individual differences and cultural patterns, and thereby promoting sound physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth and development.

• Provide an environment for nutritional services that will support the use of the snack and lunchtime as an opportunity for learning.

• Help staff, child, and family to understand the relationship of nutrition to health and the variety of ways to provide for nutritional needs and to apply this knowledge in the development of sound food habits even after leaving the Sure Start program.

• Demonstrate the interrelationships of nutrition to the educational activities of the Sure Start program and its contribution to the overall child development goals.

• Commit the resources and support of the agency, staff, and parents in meeting the child’s nutritional needs so that nutritional care provided by Sure Start complements and supplements that of the home and community.

To ensure that children have access to good nutrition and grow up healthy, they need to eat a wide variety of foods, as prescribed by the My Plate guidelines for children 2 to 6:

https://www.choosemyplate.gov/browse-by-audience/view-all-audiences/children

All meals served must meet the nutritional guidelines established by the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program.