Document Type
Article
Abstract
Introduction: Out of school hours care (OSHC) is a fastgrowing childcare setting in Australia, however the types of foods and beverages ofered are relatively unknown. This study describes the food and beverages ofered and inves‑ tigates sectorlevel and settinglevel factors which may impact OSHC in meeting the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADG). Methods: This crosssectional, observational study was conducted in 89 OSHC services (between 2018 and 2019). Food and beverages ofered, kitchen facilities and menus were captured via direct observation. Foods were cat‑ egorised into fve food groups or discretionary foods, based on the ADG, and frequencies determined. Short inter‑ views with OSHC directors ascertained healthy eating policies, staf training, food quality assessment methods and food budgets. Fisher’s exact test explored the infuence of sectorlevel and settinglevel factors on food provision behaviours. Results: Discretionary foods (1.5±0.68) were ofered more frequently than vegetables (0.82±0.80) (p < .001), dairy (0.97±0.81) (p = .013) and lean meats (0.22±0.54) (p < .001). OSHC associated with long day care and reported using valid food quality assessment methods ofered more lean meats (p= .002, and p= .004). Larger organisations ofered more vegetables (p = .015) and discretionary foods (p= .007). Menus with clearly worded instructions to provide fruits and vegetables daily ofered more fruit (p= .009), vegetables (p < .001) and whole grains (p= .003). No other sector or settinglevel factors were associated with services aligning with the ADG. Conclusion: Future interventions could beneft from trialling menu planning training and tools to assist OSHC ser‑ vices in NSW meet the ADG requirements.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in BMC Public Health, Volume 22, 2022.
Rights
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
APA Citation
Crowe, R. K., Probst, Y. C., Norman, J. A., Furber, S. E., Stanley, R. M., Ryan, S. T., Vuong, C., Hammersley, M. L., Wardle, K., Franco, L., Beets, M. W., Weaver, R. G., Davis, M., Innes-Hughes, C., & Okely, A. D. (2022). Foods and beverages provided in out of school hours care services: an observational study. BMC Public Health, 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12652-9
