Nutrition

The topic Nutrition interests me because I work in an international school and have seen a lot of children having unhealthy snacks and food during the day. As working in an international school, I have met lots of busy families with parents constantly travelling along different countries and having to leave their children with nannies. When children come to school in the morning, they bring sweet treats such as chocolates, candies and all the other junk food including fast food and soda drinks. What I do is to take away all these unhealthy food, talk to the parents and/or nannies to make sure these kinds of food will not be brought to class anymore, and also send home copies of the school nutrition policy, information about food groups, as well as some examples of healthy food. I understand that not only parents and nannies should learn about healthy food choices, the children should also be responsible for what they eat. So I usually plan a food project once in a while to show and remind children the importance of healthy food.

NAEYC has an article called "The Food Friends - Encouraging Preschoolers to Try New Foods" providing a lot of useful information about children's nutrition and some strategies to encourage children eating healthy food. According to Birch (1998), "Children establish food preferences and dietary habits during the first six years of life" so it is very important to provide children with many opportunities to try different food at an early age. The article gives some useful strategies to encourage children to try new foods:

• Make food fun

• Keep offering new foods

• Be a good role model by eating new foods with children

• Let children choose new foods

• Help children learn about new foods

• Try offering one new food at a time

• Avoid forcing children to try new foods

Currently I'm offering an after school activity class about healthy food and these strategies work perfect for me. I especially agree that teachers need to be good role models when cooking with children because children are good observers and quick learners. I will implement these ideas into my activities to support children with eating healthy food.

Reference

Bellows, L. and Anderson J. (2006). The Food Friends: Encouraging Preschools to Try New Foods. Retrieved January 14, 2012 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200605/BellowsBTJ.pdf

A personal birth experience

I have not given birth myself, and I haven't had opportunities taking part in any child's birth, so let me talk a little bit about my birth. My parents didn't tell me much about my birth. As a lot of people already know, Chinese government have had the one child policy since around 1980s. So at the time when I was born, my parents knew that they would probably have me as their only child for their whole life. I was born in a hospital, surrounded with a lot of my parents' relatives and friends. My parents were very happy and they provided me with the best environment to support my healthy growth. In my earliest memories, I remember not only my mom took care of my everything, but my dad also spent a quality of time playing, reading, and chatting with me. They helped me build a secure and confident childhood, and become a happy and thankful person.

In Hong Kong, most people choose to go to hospital to give birth. They have a complete list of government and private hospitals to choose from. Home-birth is very rare because it is difficult to manage and keep both mothers and babies safe. The hospitals provide pre- and post-natal checks for moms, and some hospitals offer weekly baby groups for mothers and newborn babies to support them with knowledge such as breastfeeding and other useful information such as vaccination. The birth in Hong Kong is similar to my experience, except that the government provides a lot more groups and workshops for mothers and babies born in Hong Kong.