Educators' attitude towards children's diet in the kindergarten

Diet plan for persons with allergies and hypersensitivity in educational centres is an integral part of the regular school meals system that requires additional knowledge. Educational centres need to pay more attention to nutrition to prevent potential harm associated with healthcare of children, suffering from food allergy or other forms of diseases that demand special nutrition treatment. The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to find out more about the attitude of nursery school teachers to special dietary needs of the children in Slovenian kindergartens. I tried to determine how many children in the chosen kindergarten have a guaranteed special diet, what is the protocol of providing this special diet, how the employees pass on the information about a child’s diet and whether nursery school teachers are familiar with basic precautions in case of allergic reaction. 45 professional workers from the chosen kindergarten took part in this research. Based on the analysis of the results it was determined that 4,6% of children at the chosen kindergarten have an ensured special diet. Professionals at the kindergarten are aware of the significance of ensuring special diets to children at the kindergarten, but also highlight communication difficulties with kitchen workers that forwards the food, which does not meet requirements, to the department. For this reason, consistency at meals review is demanded from nursery school teachers. Another difficulty that is to expose is a problem in case of merging groups of children, because nursery school teachers are not adequately informed about the diet of each child. The research has shown that communication between kindergarten personnel and children’s parents is of vital importance for ensuring adequate diets. Professional workers at the kindergarten are familiar with the basic precautions in case of child’s hypersensitivity but are less acquainted with precautions to be taken in case of anaphylactic shock that may be caused by food allergy. According to the results of the research, I suggest establishing a system for efficient communication between nursery school teachers, kitchen workers and children’s parents. Ensuring constant education and raising awareness about the significance of ensuring special diets has an important influence on enabling quality and safe nutrition for children that need special diets