‘Promoting healthy weight for under 5s’ is an online tool designed to help London’s health and childcare practitioners to give consistent, evidence-based healthy weight information to parents and carers of children under 5. The tool can also help practitioners to create an environment that will help children to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, and contribute to reducing health inequalities throughout London.
The tool covers seven key themes:
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breastfeeding and introducing solid foods;
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healthy eating and cooking;
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improving the oral health of children;
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physical activity;
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working with parents and carers;
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supporting overweight and obese children and their families; and
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developing policy.
The tool sets out a number of ‘exemplar standards’ for each key theme, which settings may choose to work towards. Meeting these voluntary standards will help to ensure that settings are:
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providing a health-promoting environment for children;
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promoting positive attitudes and behaviours in their staff; and
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helping staff to give evidence-based information to parents and carers.
