Nurturing children's development through healthy eating and active living: Time for policies to support effective interventions in the context of responsive emotional support and early learning.

Fostering the growth, development, health, and wellbeing of children is a global priority. The early childhood period presents a critical window to influence lifelong trajectories, however urgent multisectoral action is needed to ensure that families are adequately supported to nurture their children's growth and development. With a shared vision to give every child the best start in life, thus helping them reach their full developmental potential, we have formed the International Healthy Eating Active Living Matters (HEALing Matters) Alliance. Together, we form a global network of academics and practitioners working across child health and development, and who are dedicated to improving health equity for children and their families. Our goal is to ensure that all families are free from structural inequality and oppression and are empowered to nurture their children's growth and development through healthy eating and physical activity within the context of responsive emotional support, safety and security, and opportunities for early learning. To date, there have been disparate approaches to promoting these objectives across the health, community service, and education sectors. The crucial importance of our collective work is to bring these priorities for early childhood together through multisectoral interventions, and in so doing tackle head on siloed approaches. In this Policy paper, we draw upon extensive research and call for collective action to promote equity and foster positive developmental trajectories for all children. We call for the delivery of evidence-based programs, policies, and services that are co-designed to meet the needs of all children and families and address structural and systemic inequalities. Moving beyond the "what" is needed to foster the best start to life for all children, we provide recommendations of "how" we can do this. Such collective impact will facilitate intergenerational progression that builds human capital in future generations.

"It's not as easy as saying, 'just get them to eat more veggies'": Exploring healthy eating in residential care in Australia.

Young people living in residential out-of-home care (henceforth OoHC) are at increased risk of becoming overweight or obese. Currently, recognition of the everyday mechanisms that might be contributing to excess weight for children and young people in this setting is limited. The aim of this study was to better understand the barriers and complexities involved in the provision of a 'healthy' food environment in residential OoHC. Heightening awareness of these factors and how they might compromise a young person's physical health, will inform the development, refinement and evaluation of more sensitive and tailored weight-related interventions for this population. The paper presents a nuanced picture of the complexity of everyday food routines in residential care, and illustrates the ways in which food is 'done' in care; how food can be both symbolic of care but also used to exercise control; the way in which food can be used to create a 'family-like' environment; and the impact of traumatic experiences in childhood on subsequent behaviours and overall functioning in relation to food. It is argued that a health agenda designed for a mainstream population ignores the very complex relationship that children in residential OoHC may have with food. It is recommended that future intervention approaches account for personal food biographies, trauma and children's social backgrounds and how these are implicated in everyday practices and interactions around food.

Living alone but eating together: Exploring lunch clubs as a dining out experience.

Dining out is most often associated with pleasure and gratification, principally since it presents opportunities for sociability. However, access to dining out experiences is influenced by multiple factors, including age. Little is known about the dining out habits of older people. In particular, the food practices of those living alone in the community is under-researched compared to those in hospital or residential care. This study explores the perceptions and preferences of ten older people towards domestic and communal meals in South East Scotland. Qualitative data were generated from 5-day food diaries and in-depth interviews with individuals who lived alone and attended a community-based senior citizen's lunch club. Data were coded and thematically analysed using a symbolic interactionist perspective. A number of key themes were identified, including the meaning of mealtimes. It was found that most participants ate the majority of their meals at home alone. Despite this, dining alone was not necessarily experienced as 'lonely'. Participants reported that dining out at the lunch club was a pleasurable experience given the social interaction and the separation of consumption from food work. Moreover, due to restricted mobility and limited access to transport, the lunch club was viewed by participants as one of the few places that they could go to dine out.