Bad News – Parents concern over kids food intake at the campus
Good News – Parents concern over kids food intake at the campus
Well, every bad news in our living at campus bring good news for us. Parents and adults have their own sets of anxiety, concerns, related to growing – some of us have food high in our agenda while some have behaviour on our agenda – whatever is the agenda INVOLVEMENT and UNDERSTANDING takes the learning to different level.
Parents concern – Kids not eating healthy food, lack of nutrition .. etc
Concern of the Kitchen team at the Campus – In Spite of healthy platter, the preference for fried food along with Jam/Sauce and Sugar as replacement of vegetables in the meals.
As the community came together in “Community voice” to listen and share (parents joining online) we realized its just not about “not eating healthy food” but also
Diverse Food culture
Various Food choices
Different Food habits
Different Food needs
Constraints or Freedom?
A question – Food balance with threats, push, checks or understanding?
A question – Freely available or need some rules?
A question – Feed smartly or create understanding?
A question – Work purely with understanding or only by rules or in-between?
No decision was made, because many voted against the proposal of “Restricted Sugar (1-2 spoons), milk additives (1-2 soon), Restricted use of Jam/Sauce/ Pickles (with permission of kitchen mentor, else not available), Minimum one spoon of vegetables/soups/salad (all) served for each meal”. That means,
Many thoughts
Many needs
More to be heard
More to be understood
Meanwhile this concern brought an opportunity for more participation and sensitivity
At CAMPUS
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Bring some understanding about various food and hygiene – What goes in Pumpkin and Morringa leaves (both are part of our menu)? What is white and red rice?
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Survey of hygiene – Potty/Bath/ Brush frequency – this is only to bring stimulation and awareness (oops! I did or not did)
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Focus of the week – Each child discuss at home about his/her food focus of the week and Hygiene focus of the week. Food focus examples – focus on eating vegetable this week or chew food etc.
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Gently nudging, questioning, prompting, stimulating for various types of food
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Serving a platter of healthy food in menu along with other choices
At HOME
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Each week discuss about food and hygiene focus (to be continued at the campus)
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Understand needs of food, health and hygiene
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Also add value in child’s understanding by reading/ researching together on various aspects of food, hygiene (for example what does protein do to our body and what goes in milk additive (bournvita etc)
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If possible cook at home variety of food (different from the normal menu) – to increase the reach of taste buds.
Democracy is our most aspirational endeavour – to create and keep Aarohi as a democratic space. To us democracy can only function if there is a sustained and continuous effort to understand each other. We cannot stand on a voting day to suddenly judge.
Openness leads to understanding. Understanding leads to openness. Aarohi tries to develop understanding between all its members (especially within all children and facilitators). We prize the open environment – open to different doing and learning, open to expressing thoughts, opinions and feelings, open to all kinds of people, open to errors and omissions, to failures, to imperfections, open to … life.