Edible gardens in early childhood education settings in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Dawson, A.; Richards, Rosalina; Collins, Clare E.; Reeder, Anthony I.; Gray, Andrew

doi:10.1071/he13066

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Edible gardens were even more widespread, with nine out of ten services growing their own fruit trees and/or vegetables, and most services involving children in gardening activities daily or weekly. This appears to be an increasing prevalence of edible gardens from previous research in 2009 which found 71 % of services in New Zealand grew their own vegetables or had fruit trees (38) . A recent evaluation of funding for edible gardens in child care (39) concluded that these gardens provide opportunities to discuss the importance of fruit and vegetables for health, encourage children to try new foods, provide opportunities for cooking, and have a range of positive outcomes for children and the whole community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child-care nutrition environments: results from a survey of policy and practice in New Zealand early childhood education services

Gerritsen

Wall

Morton

2015

Public Health Nutr.

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Objective: To describe nutrition environments in formal child care for 3-and 4-year-olds. Design: Cross-sectional online survey of nutrition-related child-care policy and practice. Written nutrition policies were analysed using the Wellness Child Care Assessment Tool. Setting: Licensed child-care services in the Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waikato regions of New Zealand. Subjects: Eight hundred and forty-seven services (private and community day care, kindergartens and playcentres). Results: Managers/head teachers of 257 child-care services completed the survey. Of services, 82·4 % had a written food, nutrition or wellness policy. Most policies did not refer to the national Food and Nutrition Guidelines and lacked directives for staff regarding recommended behaviours to promote healthy eating. Food was provided daily to children in 56·4 % of child-care services, including 33·5 % that provided lunch and at least two other meals/snacks every day. Teachers talked to children about food, and cooked with children, at least weekly in 60 % of childcare services. Nearly all services had an edible garden (89·5 %). Foods/beverages were sold for fundraising in the past 12 months by 37·2 % of services. The most commonly reported barrier to promoting nutrition was a lack of support from families (20·6 %). Conclusions: Although the majority of child-care services had a written nutrition policy, these were not comprehensive and contained weak statements that could be difficult to action. Foods served at celebrations and for fundraising were largely high in sugar, salt and/or saturated fat. Most services promoted some healthy eating behaviours but other widespread practices encouraged children to overeat or form unhealthy food preferences. KeywordsChild care Pre-school Kindergarten Day care Nutrition environment Nutrition behaviours Obesity preventionAs in many developed countries in the world, New Zealand has experienced a rapid rise in the prevalence of children who are overweight or obese (1) and now has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the world (2) . Even pre-schoolers are affected by this public health crisis; weight and height measurements taken from 4-year-olds every year from 2009 to 2012 have revealed that one in three are overweight or obese, with no improvements seen over time. Māori and Pasifika children and those living in deprived neighbourhoods had an even greater prevalence of excess weight (3) . A recent Lancet series on obesity emphasised that there is a 'reciprocal … interaction between the environment and the individual' whereby 'environmental factors affect personal preferences and demands for unhealthy foods, which, as part of a vicious cycle, encourage environments to continue promoting unhealthy foods' (4) . This elucidates the importance of creating healthy environments for young children who are still forming food preferences, eating behaviours and physical activity patterns, in order to break the 'vicious cycle' of demand for nutrient-poor and energy-dense foods and a sedentar...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child-care nutrition environments: results from a survey of policy and practice in New Zealand early childhood education services

Gerritsen

Wall

Morton

2015

Public Health Nutr.

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“…Despite this, our results may not be generalizable to other nurseries in England. However, our response rate is nearly identical to that of a similar survey of 211 ECE programs in New Zealand (54% versus 55%) [56]. Further, we used surveys rather than qualitative interviews or focus groups because we were interested in assessing a wide range of nurseries across England and quantitatively exploring associations rather than the range of perceptions present.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Barriers to Fruit and Vegetable Gardens in Early Years Settings in England: Results from a Cross-Sectional Survey of Nurseries

et al. 2019

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Garden-based interventions may increase child intake of fruits and vegetables and offset food costs, but few have been conducted in early care and education (ECE). This study assessed whether nurseries were interested in and perceived any barriers to growing fruits and vegetables. Surveys were mailed to a cross-sectional sample of nurseries in 2012–2013 throughout England. Nurseries were stratified based on socioeconomic status as most, middle, or least deprived areas. We fit logistic regression models to assess the odds of nurseries interested in growing fruits and vegetables and perceiving any barriers, by deprivation tertile. A total of 851 surveys were returned (54% response). Most nurseries (81%) were interested in growing fruits and vegetables. After adjustment, there was no difference in interest in the middle (OR 1.55; CI 0.84, 2.78; p = 0.16) or most (OR 1.05; CI 0.62, 1.78; p = 0.87) deprived areas, compared to the least deprived. Nurseries reported barriers to growing fruits and vegetables, including space (42%), expertise (26%), and time (16%). Those in the most deprived areas were more likely to report space as a barrier (OR 2.02; 95% CI 1.12, 3.66; p = 0.02). Nurseries in the most deprived areas may need creative solutions for growing fruits and vegetables in small spaces.

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“…The potential benefits of community gardens and other urban open spaces have encouraged many governments to plan specific spaces for food planting [39,40]. Edible parks, community farms, school gardens, and rooftop gardens are the main growing areas in most countries [9,23,24]. In China, there were no public spaces planned for agriculture use in urban areas.…”

Section: Significance Of Government's Plan and Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most developed countries, edible elements such as vegetables, fruits, and herbs were introduced into community gardens, school gardens, and home gardens [4,6,43,45,54]. This mainly provided the social benefit of natural education for the public [3,23,24], which attracts most urban residents' participation [37,43]. Compared with developed countries, most developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Nepal implemented edible landscape projects to provide high-quality food supply [3,16,36].…”

Section: Limitations and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Residents’ Attention and Awareness of Urban Edible Landscapes: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

Xie

Yang

2019

Forests

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More and more urban residents in China have suffered from food insecurity and failed to meet the national recommendation of daily fruit and vegetable consumption due to rapid urbanization in recent years. Introducing edible landscapes to urban greening systems represents an opportunity for improving urban food supply and security. However, residents' opinion on urban edible landscapes has rarely been discussed. In this study, questionnaire surveys were performed in eight sample communities in Wuhan, China, to collect the information on residents' attention and awareness of urban edible landscapes. Results indicated that nearly one-third of the respondents were unaware of edible landscapes before the interview. Most residents thought that an edible landscape could promote efficient land use (57.26%) and express special ornamental effects (54.64%), but quite a few didn't believe that growing edible plants in urban public spaces could increase food output (37.10%) and improve food quality (40.12%). Overall, 45.65% and 32.73% of the growers performed their cultivation behavior in private and semiprivate spaces, respectively. Lack of public areas for agriculture use was regarded as the main barrier restricting the development of urban horticulture by 55.86% of growers and 59.51% of non-growers. The residents were also worried about their property manager's opposition, possible conflicts, and complex relationships with their neighbors. Food policies and infrastructure support from local governments and official institutions were needed to ensure the successful implementation of edible landscapes in urban areas.

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Edible gardens in early childhood education settings in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Cited by 13 publications

References 7 publications

Child-care nutrition environments: results from a survey of policy and practice in New Zealand early childhood education services

Child-care nutrition environments: results from a survey of policy and practice in New Zealand early childhood education services

Perceived Barriers to Fruit and Vegetable Gardens in Early Years Settings in England: Results from a Cross-Sectional Survey of Nurseries

Residents’ Attention and Awareness of Urban Edible Landscapes: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

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