Children's Nutritional Needs: What Every Nursery Should Know
6th May 2025
By Charlotte Stirling-Reed
Ensuring that young children receive the right nutrients is crucial for their growth, development, and overall well-being. Young children have high energy and nutrient needs due to their rapid growth and development. But as we all know, young children are often on the go, with lots of learning and activities - therefore the foods on offer, especially in a nursery setting, need to be nutrient and energy dense as much as possible.
Nurseries play a vital role in providing balanced meals and snacks that meet the nutritional needs of young children. Many children will be eating a large proportion of their meals at nursery and so ensuring that these are balanced and provide the right nutrition is important to help them stay healthy!
This blog will explore essential nutrients that young children need every day and the food groups that should be included in their meals and snacks at nursery. We’ll also explain why these nutrients and food groups are important.
Government guidance on nutritional needs for early years
Working out the exact nutrients that every child needs and in what proportions would be impossible. Which is why the Government in the UK recommend young children have a “balanced diet”. The Eatwell Plate from the UK Government sets out the food groups children need and the specific proportions.
Having this reference allows those in charge of feeding young children to ensure that children are offered a balance of foods from different food groups to make up all the energy and nutrients that they need each day. The Eatwell Plate is largely for children over the age of 2, but the concept of offering a “balance” is still very much relevant to younger children and even babies during the weaning process.
What are children's essential nutritional needs?
To support the complex nutritional needs of young children, nurseries must prioritise and promote healthy eating habits by providing a balanced diet that includes a variety of food and drinks from the 4 main food groups every day.
Let's explore the components of such a diet.
Carbohydrates
These provide energy and fibre - super important for growing, energetic young children - and you get carbohydrates in a lot of foods such as oats, bread, rice, potatoes, chapatti, pasta, quinoa, couscous. It’s good to vary the types of carbohydrates you offer at nursery and also focus on some which are wholegrains (e.g. oats, wholegrain pasta or brown rice) and those with plenty of fibre. These should be included at lunch every day.
Vegetables and Fruits
They provide an array of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants as well as fibre and water for hydration. This type of food, such as carrots, strawberries, bananas, squash, courgettes, peppers, oranges and spinach, etc, ensures that young children get a really wide variety of important vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, B vitamins, folate and many more. These are needed for multiple functions in the body, such as keeping the immune system healthy, helping children to utilise the energy from their food and for looking after their eye health. A variety of fruits and vegetables every day is recommended, and so it’s always a good idea to try and provide plenty at an early year foundation stage throughout the day and at most meals. At least one portion should always be offered at lunch.
Proteins/Iron-rich foods
This food group helps to provide protein, which supports muscle growth, tissue repair and the immune system. Iron is a nutrient that is often low in many young children’s diets, and foods from this food group can help ensure young children get enough. Foods such as lentils, beans, pulses, chickpeas, meat alternatives, meat, fish and eggs are included in this food group and at least 1 portion of protein rich foods should be offered in your nursery lunch each day.
Dairy foods
Dairy foods or dairy-free alternatives that are plain and fortified. This food group is important for offering children calcium for growing bones, protein for their immune system and other minerals such as iodine and zinc. Milk, cheese, yogurt and custard are examples (or dairy free, fortified plain alternatives) and most children need these foods 2-3 times a day. Nurseries should ensure they provide these in their meals.
Trying to offer a variety of foods from each of these four food groups to children each day can help ensure they get all of the energy, vitamins and minerals they need. These food groups should be offered each day, at most meals and snacks at nursery.
To better understand the different food groups, refer to this poster on the 4 food groups provided by the Department for Education. It offers clear guidance on what should be included in a balanced diet.
For nurseries that prepare their meals in-house, a key part of providing a balanced diet is planning an effective ingredient list and understanding how to use food labels to make informed, healthier choices about the foods served to young children. Food labels are found on most pre-packaged foods and provide essential nutrition information to help nurseries choose suitable options and monitor the amounts of fat, salt, and added sugars in children's diets.
Other important nutrients for child development
Other important nutrition considerations for young children:
Fat – children need fat in their diet, so it’s not generally recommended that young children have low-fat foods. Full Fat Milk is fine to offer, although the UK Government now suggests that Semi Skimmed milk is OK as a main drink over 1 year of age.
Iron – this is an important nutrient for growth and development, but many children don’t include enough iron rich foods in their diet. Foods such as lentils, quality meat, egg yolks, fish, dark green leafy veggies can contain iron. It’s good to opt for a variety of iron rich options for young children, including some animal sources and some plant sources. Serving fruit and veggies alongside these iron rich foods can aid absorption of iron!
Omega -3 – Omega 3 largely comes from oily fish, which should be included in young children’s diet each week to help children get enough omega-3. If some of the children you look after at nursery don’t or won’t eat fish, foods such as flaxseeds, chia seeds, hempseeds, and some oils such as rapeseed and olive oil can offer a source. Children who don’t eat much of these at all may need a supplement.
Vitamin A – young children are recommended to take a supplement of Vitamin A, from around 6 months of age (or when they are having less than 500mls of formula). Vitamin A is important for the immune system and supporting vision. Foods such as cheese, eggs, oily fish and dairy, as well as dark green leafy veggies, peppers and mangos, are a source of vitamin A. To find out more about supplements recommended, see here.
Iodine – This nutrient is important for producing thyroid hormones and important in brain development. This largely comes from the diet in the form of fish, eggs and dairy foods, but some plant based milks are also fortified with iodine.
Calcium – This is an important nutrient for growing bones. It's best to get calcium from your diet. Good sources include dairy products, calcium-set tofu, fortified cereals, certain vegetables, dried fruits, and fortified dairy alternatives.
Zinc – This is important for immune function and is often found in the foods that are in the protein food group above. Fish, meat, cheese, eggs, seeds, oats and many other foods contain zinc!
Vitamin D – young children are also recommended to have certain supplements depending on their age and how much milk they consume. One nutrient that can’t be obtained from the diet is vitamin D and so this is important to supplement in the diet of young children.
Final Thoughts on Children's Nutritional Needs
Offering a balanced diet in early years settings should help you to cover off these important nutrients and others suggested above. At nursery, it’s so important to ensure that the meals on offer every day follow the government guidance on nutritional needs for early years and offer plenty of variety to ensure children get the right amount of energy and nutrients they need each day while maintaining a healthy weight.
Partnering with a trusted nursery catering company can help your nursery ensure the children in your care receive the nutrients they need for their development.
Zebedees’ menus are ruthlessly checked by our Chefs and our Consultant Nutritionist, and we ensure that we always go above and beyond the standards set by the UK Government. As a caterer committed to making a real difference and providing fresh and balanced meals so that all children can grow healthy and happy, we have been awarded the Health Hero Award at the 2025 Food Manufacture Excellence Awards.
Get in touch to explore how Zebedees can support your nursery.
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