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Healthy Child Care

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Healthy Child Care

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"Early childhood settings, including both child care centers and informal care, present a tremendous opportunity to prevent obesity by making an impact at a pivotal phase in children's lives." -Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity in a Generation: a Report to the President from the Childhood Obesity Task Force

Recognizing the importance of child care settings in helping our youngest children get off to a healthy start, child care providers in Michigan are making changes to go above and beyond minimal regulatory standards to improve their nutrition and physical activity environments, including policies and practices, for the prevention of childhood obesity by:

 

  1. Completing the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC), which will assess the child care program based on 12 nutrition key areas and 9 physical activity key areas.
     
  2. Developing an Action Plan based on the results from the NAP SACC Self-Assessment that includes at least:

    ONE NUTRITION GOAL
    Example: Serving skim or 1% milk after age 2, Limiting 100% fruit juice, and/or Providing access to self-serve drinking water

    ONE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY GOAL
    Example: Increasing required daily physical activity to a minimum of 60 minutes per day through:
    • Teacher-lead activities
    • Free, active play
    • Participating in annual physical activity education

    ONE NEW OR IMPROVED WRITTEN POLICY
    Example: Our child care program is committed to limiting television, video and computer time to a maximum of 30 minutes per week for children 2 and older.
     
  3. Participating in Great Start to Quality and earn up to 4 points on the self-assessment survey for meeting quality indicators related to nutrition and physical activity.

 

Helpful Resources

Healthy Child Care Tools and Resources

Information and resources for consultants and support agencies