The Move Well Eat Well - Early Childhood Award is made up of six messages around healthy eating and active play. Childhood is an important period in which children develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours for lifelong health. These messages have been selected as key habits to improve the health of Tasmanian children.

• Drinking water provides hydration for concentration and learning and promotes healthy teeth.

• Fruit and vegetables provide essential nutrients for healthy eyes, skin and hair and protect against many diseases.

• Less ‘sometimes’ foods means children fill up on nutritious foods and drinks needed for growth and health.

• Active play promotes a longer healthier life. It helps develop fitness, motor skills and confidence.

• Less screen time means more time to develop physical, social and emotional skills through active play.

• Walking and riding are great ways to increase physical activity and develop skills and attitudes for safe travel.

The messages relate to Award criteria that represent the ways early childhood education and care services can make healthy eating and active play a positive, normal and easy part of every child’s day. The criteria have been selected on the basis of evidence, expert opinion and health-related policies. When the Award criteria are met your setting is eligible to become a Move Well Eat Well - Early Childhood Award Service.

Each criteria and associated messages are further explained in each of The Starter Pack Booklets. These booklets help your service become an Award Service by providing support for the healthy eating and active play messages and the whole-of-service health promoting message. They will also assist you to make links with families, curriculum and policy. The Starter Pack Booklets are provided to services at their Orientation Session. They can also be found in each icon message section of the Move Well Eat Well website.

The criteria:

1 Drinking water is available and accessible to children, both indoors and outdoors, at all times (e. g. water bottles, water coolers, jugs).

2a Exclusive breastfeeding is encouraged, with positive support, for babies up to 6 months. Continued breastfeeding is also encouraged and supported beyond 6 months.

2b A variety of age-appropriate fruit and vegetables are served daily. For each occasion that food is served, fruit and/or vegetables are offered. Fruit and vegetables are encouraged in lunch boxes brought from home.

2c Meal environments are planned to be positive, relaxed and social experiences.

3a ‘Sometimes’ foods and drinks* are not included in planned menus and are discouraged in lunch boxes sent from home.

3b ‘Sometimes’ foods and drinks are not used as a reward, incentive or for comfort, and are limited in the wider service environment.

4 Daily child-initiated and adult-guided active play is a significant component of the curriculum, and is consistent with the Australian 24 hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (Birth to 5 years).

5 Screen time (television/DVD/computers/electronic games) is not used or is limited in the service, consistent with the Australian 24 hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (Birth to 5 year).

6 Age-appropriate walking, riding and road safety opportunities are provided as a regular part of the curriculum.

7a The curriculum incorporates the Australian Dietary Guidelines, Infant Feeding Guidelines and the Australian 24 hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (Birth to 5 years) and aligns with the relevant National Quality Standards and the Early Years Learning Framework.

7b All Move Well Eat Well - Early Childhood Award criteria are included within policy and planning documents, for all ages, and are endorsed by the service management.

7c Families, educators and support staff are provided with policy documents and ongoing information, ideas and strategies to promote healthy eating and active play.

While many children enjoy a healthy lifestyle, there is a significant number of Tasmanian children who are missing out on the benefits of healthy eating and active play. Healthy eating and active play promotes physical, social and emotional health in children and provides opportunities for optimal learning.1

Many early childhood service educators and support staff recognise unhealthy eating and active play habits in children in their care. However there are still many people who are not aware of the serious long-term consequences of unhealthy eating and physical inactivity. Early education and care settings, childhood services and schools can play a key role in making ‘healthier choices easier choices’.

Water: By the time they are 5 years old around half of Australian children have decay in their baby teeth 2. This decay is related to eating and drinking too much sugar, and sweet drinks are the largest single source of sugar for Australian children. 3

Fruit and Veg: If ‘sometimes’ foods like hot potato chips are removed from the data, only 1% of children in early childhood are eating the recommended amount of vegetables. For fruit the numbers are higher with 78% of 2-3 year olds and 59% of 4-8 year olds eating the recommended amount. 4

Sometimes foods: Australian toddlers are getting 30% of their daily energy from ‘sometimes’ foods and drinks and children 4-8 years old are getting 37%. 5

Active play: Less than half of young children meet the daily recommended level of physical activity.6

Screen time: Tasmanian’s aged 2-4 years spend an average of 77 minutes/day on sedentary screen-based activity, this exceeds the recommendation of a maximum of 60 minutes. 7

Active travel: The use of active transport to and from school has declined by 42% between 1971 and 2013. Active transport, such as walking and riding to get to places, can contribute to the recommended levels of physical activity for children. 8
Find out more about the research that underpins and guides Move Well Eat Well.

Research shows that a child’s experience in their first five years sets the course for the rest of their life.9 The key protective factors that make a significant difference to improving outcomes for children include:

• secure attachment with a primary carer
• breastfeeding
• good nutrition and physical activity
• stimulating play-based learning experiences.10

Health promotion programs, such as Move Well Eat Well, have an important place in early childhood education and care settings. The Move Well Eat Well – Early Childhood Award Program helps services work towards quality education and care standards and outcomes as determined in the following key sector national and state frameworks and curricula:

• The National Quality Standards for Early Childhood Education and Care Services
• The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia

Settings like Early Childhood Services are important places for the promotion and practice of healthy eating and active play. Healthy eating and active play benefit children by:

• helping to keep children happy and strong 11, 12, 13, 14
• promoting health and wellbeing including mental health and wellbeing in childhood and adult life 15, 16
• helping them to learn to enjoy a wide variety of foods and develop confidence in their bodies 13
• increasing fine and gross motor skills and balance, agility, flexibility, coordination and cardio-vascular health
• contributing to an energy balance assisting in weight management
• learning to cooperate, share, problem solve and resolve conflict
• practising nurturance, guidance and other pro-social behaviours
• acting out skills and situations for life-developing communication skills. 17

The Move Well Eat Well Award aligns with some of the Standards within the National Quality Framework, assisting services to meet the Standards. Read Service examples of alignments.

Move Well Eat Well aligns with the learning outcomes of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework. 1 When children are part of an environment where healthy eating and active play are normal in practice and policy they are best placed to develop, learn and have good health both in the present and into the future.

The World Health Organisation encourages services to take a health promoting settings approach to support children’s healthy eating and active play. This approach encourages health initiatives to be incorporated into the day-to-day experiences at services. This whole-of-service approach outlines six essential elements across three key areas – supportive environments, teaching and learning, and working in partnerships (refer to Health promoting early childhood education and services diagram).
The Move Well Eat Well Award Program for early childhood education and care services is based on the World Health Organisation’s Health Promoting Schools Model and can be adapted to meet the needs of different socio-economic, geographical and cultural environments.

1. Australian Government Department of Education and Training. Belonging, Being and Becoming. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Viewed online 13 February 2019, https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/belonging_being_and_becoming_the_early_years_learning_framework_for_australia.docx

2. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2016) Oral health and dental care in Australia – key facts and figures 2015. Cat. No. DEN 229. Canberra: AIHW. Viewed online 21 November 2017, https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/57922dca-62f3-4bf7-9ddc-6d8e550c7c58/19000.pdf.aspx?inline=true

3. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2015, Australian Health Survey: consumption of added sugars, 2011-12. Canberra, ABS Catalogue No. 4364.0.55.011. Viewed online 1 December 2017, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.011~2011-12~Main%20Features~Sources%20of%20Free%20Sugars~10

4. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Australian Health Survey: Consumption of Food Groups from the Australian Dietary Guidelines, 2011-12. Canberra, ABS Catalogue No. 4364.0.55.012. Viewed online 19 October 2017, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.012~2011-12~Main%20Features~Key%20Findings~1

5. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2014). Australian Health Survey: Nutrition First Results – Foods and Nutrients, 2011-12. Viewed online, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4364.0.55.007~2011-12~Main%20Features~Discretionary%20foods~700

6. Hnatiuk, J. Understanding young children’s physical activity, Thesis Presentation. Deakin University, April 2015.

7. The Australian Health Survey, National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, Table 22.1, 2011-12

8. Active Healthy Kids Australia (2014). Is Sport Enough? The 2014 Active Healthy Kids Australia Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Young People. Adelaide, South Australia: Active Healthy Kids Australia.

9. The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care: Information for Families. Accessed July 2011 on the Australian Government’s Mychild website: www.mychild.gov.au/pages/FamiliesandCarers.aspx.

10. ‘Investing in the Early Years’ – A National Strategy’. An initiative of the Council of Australian Governments (2009) p32.

11. National Health and Medical Research Council (2012) Infant feeding guidelines. Canberra: National Health and Medical Research Council.

12. Department of Health and Ageing (2013). Get Up & Grow: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Guidelines for Early Childhood Settings –Director/Coordinator Book . Commonwealth Government of Australia. Viewed online 20 October 2017, quote from page 20, https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/EA1E1000D846F0AFCA257BF0001DADB3/$File/HEPA%20-%20A4%20Book%20-%20Directors%20Book%20-%20LR.pdf

13.Public Health Services (2016) Tucker Talk- A nutrition education manual for child health nurses. Department of Health and Human Services, Tasmania.

14..National Health and Medical Research Council (2013) The Australian Dietary Guidelines. Canberra: National Health and Medical Research Council.

15.Public Health Services (2017) Early childhood services menu planning guidelines and self-assessment tool, Department of Health and Human Services, Tasmania. Viewed online 14 November 2017, http://movewelleatwell.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0003/247908/2020_MWEW-EC_menu_planning_tool_Full_LDC.docx

16. Cusick. S and Georgieff, M (2016) The Role of Nutrition in Brain Development: The Golden Opportunity of the “First 1000 Days”, Journal of Pediatrics. 175: pp. 16–21. Published online 2016 Jun 3. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.05.013

17. Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing (2017). Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (birth to 5 years): An Integration of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep.