PD938 - NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES AND PRACTICES IN DAYCARE CENTRES: A SCOPING REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

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PD938

NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES AND PRACTICES IN DAYCARE CENTRES: A SCOPING REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

F. Costa1, B. Teixeira 1,2, A. Lombardi1, D. e Silva1,3,4,*

1Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Porto, 2EPIUnit ITR, Institute of Public Health of the University Porto, 3Center for Health Technology and Services Research-CINTESIS, University of Porto, 4Nutrition Department, Local Health Unit São João, Porto, Portugal

 

Rationale: The first three years of life are critical for establishing lifelong dietary and health patterns, with daycare centres providing key environments for implementing early nutritional interventions. This scoping review aimed to analyse existing national and regional guidelines for food provision in daycare settings, identifying common principles, inconsistencies and gaps.

Methods: Searches were performed on the official websites of national and regional health ministries from December 2024 to January 2025, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist. This scoping review is registered in the Open Science Framework (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/CWG8E).

Results: Twenty-nine official documents from seventeen countries were included. Findings revealed wide heterogeneity in age ranges, portion sizes and recommended food frequencies. Most guidelines recommend the daily inclusion of breastmilk, meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits and dairy products, alongside a broad consensus on limiting added sugars and salt.  However, several gaps were identified, including frequent inclusion of red and processed meat, insufficient emphasis on fish and plant-based protein sources, limited promotion of whole grains, and permissiveness toward fruit juices and ultra-processed foods. Quantitative recommendations were often incomplete, and few guidelines addressed vegetarian diets or texture progression.

Conclusion: This review highlights the urgent need for harmonised, evidence-based, and context-specific nutritional guidelines tailored to daycare centres. Standardised frameworks could improve the quality of food provision, foster healthier eating habits in early childhood, and support long-term public health benefits.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared