Daycare Food is Generally Unhealthy

If you are planning to put your child in daycare, one of the things that you should concern yourself with beyond what they teach your child is what they are going to feed to them. Asking to see a weekly or monthly menu is a critical part of assessing how well the facility is run and whether or not your child is simply going to eat poorly prepared and boxed meals or get some foods that are somewhat healthy.

If you are unfamiliar with a standard meal plan in a daycare setting (or a school for that matter) in the United States, then you may be a bit surprised to learn what they often serve. Meals are anything but super healthy, and often are simply things that would be considered unhealthy or junk food. Trying to find a daycare that serves semi-decent food may be a struggle depending on where you live.

An example of items that you may find on the menu in your local daycare include things such as flatbread pizzas, BBQ chicken, hamburgers, cheese quesadillas, chicken mac and cheese, bean & cheese burritos, cereal, and so forth. While these are generally the primary portion of the meal, there are many problems with these items being primary focuses of a meal and will often lead to poor eating habits.

Looking at a few of the items above, we can assess why they aren’t the healthiest choices. Pizza and quesadillas generally don’t have much protein on them outside of the cheese. Pepperoni on a pizza is more fat than protein (although it tastes great). Mac and cheese similarly is a lot of fats and butter - it also tastes great. Adding some chicken to the meal helps increase the nutritional value somewhat, but it teaches your kids a reliance on having mac and cheese in order to eat chicken. BBQ chicken is a decent choice, but there’s likely so much bbq sauce on there that it ruins the nutritional value - your kids will eat it though because it’s so sweet and tastes good. 

Ultimately, the main problem with meals like this is that kids don’t learn to love the food itself, but rather all of the unhealthy parts around it. They’ll eat pizza because of the cheese that’s loaded on top. They’ll eat BBQ chicken because of the sweet taste. They’ll eat chicken mac and cheese because of the butter and cheese flavor. Give them the chicken separately, or give them plain beans, and they won’t touch them.

One of the main reasons that menus in daycares aren’t overly healthy is because the average American diet isn’t overly healthy. Daycares don’t want kids to not eat (and neither do their parents), so the average food that they are serving is made to appeal to the majority of kids. Kids will eat when the food is unhealthy. If the food had less sugar, butter, and fats then many kids simply wouldn’t eat. The daycares don’t have an easy way out of this - the situation really needs to be addressed in the home at first.

When looking for a daycare, there are a few things to look for in the menu to help you choose the best of the bunch - realistically you’re not going to find a daycare that serves fresh food like you’ll find in countries outside of the United States. First off, you want to know where they get their food from. Do they have a kitchen that prepares the food or do they buy pre-made type meals that are served. A kitchen will generally have higher quality food coming out of it. For example, our daycare gets all of it’s food supplies from Costco and makes all of the food in the kitchen. Costco sells plenty of boxed and pre-made foods, but many of the foods they’re at least making.

The other item to look at is how many additional condiments and additives are going into the food. For example, are they loading things up with extra sugar or butter so that the kids will eat it? Do they serve baked chicken ever or is there always some type of sauce included with it? Do they ever serve more plain type foods that aren’t relying on the “good” stuff to help kids eat it? This won’t be every meal, but understanding if they ever do this can help you make your decision.

Look at what additional sides they include with meals. Most daycares will include some type of vegetable as part of the meal, but once again, is it loaded with butter or other additives that make it taste good or is it a plain vegetable? What types of drinks are they serving - do the kids get milk and water ever or is it always sugar-loaded juices?

Finding a daycare that serves a somewhat decent meal may be difficult to find in the United States. Changes to meal plans need to start at home and then through local and national leaders. Teach your kids to like plain foods at home that don’t rely on sugar, butter, and fat - that’s the first key to start making a change in the way kids eat.