The first six years of human life marks the period of rapid development physically, emotionally, and mentally. During these formative years, the children also interact with the social environment at the most intensive level. These are years where children should undergo different forms of interventions in life. Food and nutrition is a form of intervention that is important at this stage of life. Good is an essential basic need in human life. However, food goes hand in hand with matters concerning health. Health and food are thus are critical elements of human development. Education On the other side is transformative. Education provides knowledge through instruction that first acts upon the attitudes of a person (Britto et al., 2017). It thus goes on to influence their behavior. The food and nutrition education package should go alongside the education at an early stage of learning because at this stage. It would be easy to influence the children's behaviors and attitude towards a better diet and healthy eating. From the research studies on this topic, scholars comment it is important to have nutrition lessons at early childhood education to create a foundation for a better and healthy population in the future.
Scholars’ views and reports on the topic
According to Britto et al. (2017), children need to understand the meaning of nutrition, and they should be positive about what they east at an early stage. The authors report that this is the best way to provide children with a better foundation to understand the importance of food in their health. In this case, the authors claim that such lessons should be positive, interactive, and should integrate into daily routines in the classroom. Further, research by Richter et al. (2017) argues that Successful nutrition education programs influence children’s eating behaviors. The authors claim that at a young age, children have a flexible attitude. According to the authors, the nature of the upbringing and interaction with the environment at this stage determine the resulting attitude a child has towards the environment.
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Education is an influential factor at this point, according to these authors. It implies that when a child learns about nutrition at this stage, he or she develops a healthy positive attitude towards how to manage a proper diet and how to stay healthy in the environment as far as matters of nutrition are concerned. In this case, therefore, Richter et al. (2017) state that some key elements should feature in a nutrition education program. For instance, such an educational program should be positive towards food. Further, such programs should encourage acceptance of a variety of healthy eating. Other than that, teaching and promoting the relationship between health and food should be the priority of such education program at this point.
Black et al. (2017), on the other hand, view this matter with regards to the future life of these children. According to the authors, Nutrition is a topic that is paramount for the entire nation. The authors point to the current chronic illness statistics in the United States. The authors echo the statistics from the World Health Organization that places obesity prevalence in the United States at 16%. From the authors' perspective, it implies that most people do not understand healthy eating habit. Besides, the authors claim that people do not have the right attitude towards healthy eating. The authors thus insist that the right time to cultivate this culture is at a young age during the pre-school learning. From the authors' view, nutrition education at a young age provides the basic solution to preventing nutrition problems that might emerge in the future, as nutrition affects a child’s physical, social and emotional development as well as their behavior.
Lewallen et al. (2015), also views this matter concerning the attitude the children have towards food at the early stage of life. The authors assert that one of the remarkable issues about the children at the pre-school is their negative attitude towards some food. At this stage, the authors argue that children tend to be choosy and thus making a proper decision on what to eat is sometimes a challenge to them. It is at this point that parents and educators need to intervene by guiding the children on what to eat and what people regard as unhealthy for them. Further, at this point, the educators will help the children acquire healthy nutritional habits that are in line with nutrition principles. The nutrition education programs at early childhood will also correct the inaccurate understanding and wrong practices of nutrition the children have and guide them in adopting positive nutritional behavior in daily life.
Validity, Interpretation, implication, and significance of the topic
From the scholars'' view, it is evident that each of them is giving a green light for teachers at the preschool level to amalgamate nutrition education program with the regular curriculum at this level. From the scholars' findings, education shape the children attitude towards their environment at a young age. It implies that when institutions introduce nutrition education at this stage, educators will teach children about the best food for them. The teachers will help in influencing the children's attitude about healthy eating, and this will play a significant role in their future health.
From the research, the authors seem to have a converging report on this matter. First, they all claim that introducing the nutritional program at an early childhood education stage is essential not only for the children’s health but also for their future. Further, most of the authors agree that at the pre-school stage, it is easy to influence children's attitude towards healthy eating behaviors, and this is critical in preventing diseases that come due to unhealthy eating habits. Lastly, most of these authors claim that the right environment to facilitate such learning is a school environment because of the positive atmosphere that exists in the school. In this case, therefore, it is right to state that most of the information presented by the scholars about education and nutrition at early school age among children is valid.
The matter of health and nutrition is critical for personal and professional development. Currently, health matters a lot because of the reduced life span in society. People have a lot of pressure ranging from the job-based pressure to economic pressure. In this sense, people do not want to mess up with nutritional issues to add to the pressure that already exists. In this sense, each person needs to understand that healthy eating is paramount for their development. As a professional, health is critical in advancing a career. A healthy person is more productive than a sick person. It implies that persons need to drive all efforts toward achieving better health through developing and cultivating a good and healthy eating behavior.
In conclusion, researching matters about integrating nutritional education at early school age are benefiting. It reveals that such integration will not only bring a healthy eating habit, but it will also reduce the chances of nutritionally related disease that crop due to bad eating habit among children. The scholars have asserted that a change in attitude is achievable at early school age, which makes it an excellent stage to teach attitude change about better nutritional balance and health among children.
References
Black, M. M., Walker, S. P., Fernald, L. C., Andersen, C. T., DiGirolamo, A. M., Lu, C., ... &Devercelli, A. E. (2017). Early childhood development coming of age: science through the life course. The Lancet , 389 (10064), 77-90.
Britto, P. R., Lee, S. J., Proulx, K., Yousafzai, A. K., Matthews, S. G., Vaivada, T., ... & MacMillan, H. (2017). Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development. The Lancet , 389 (10064), 91-102.
Lewallen, T. C., Hunt, H., Potts ‐ Datema, W., Zaza, S., & Giles, W. (2015). The whole school, the entire community, complete child model: A new approach for improving educational attainment and healthy development for students. Journal of School Health , 85 (11), 729-739.
Richter, L. M., Daelmans, B., Lombardi, J., Heymann, J., Boo, F. L., Behrman, J. R., ...&Bhutta, Z. A. (2017). Investing in the foundation of sustainable development: pathways to scale up for early childhood development. The Lancet , 389 (10064), 103-118.
