Background: Early childhood (2–5 years) is acknowledged as a critical time for the establishment of healthy behaviours. The increasing number of children and amount of time spent in childcare provides strong rationale to explore the important role that childcare services and childcare educators play in influencing healthy eating behaviours of young children in their care. Methods: This study used a qualitative exploratory approach to describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices of Australian childcare trainee educators’ regarding their role in the feeding of young children. Results: All participants agreed that feeding of young children was an important part of their role, but described challenges to the promotion of healthy eating and the adoption of responsive child feeding practices. These included personal beliefs and experiences with food, the bi-directional nature of child feeding, conflicting parental requests and/or unsupportive centre-based policies and procedures. Conclusion: Training about responsive child feeding practices within the childcare sector should include all childcare staff; aim to enhance relational efficacy and communication skills with parents; and empower childcare staff to lead organisational change. To support this, childcare centres need to provide coherent centre-based healthy eating policies inclusive of healthy food provision and desirable feeding practices.

中文翻译：

---

澳大利亚见习托儿教育工作者关于其在幼儿喂养行为中的作用的知识，态度和做法。

背景：幼儿（2-5岁）被认为是建立健康行为的关键时间。越来越多的儿童和花费在托儿上的时间为探究托儿服务和托儿教育者在影响幼儿照料中健康饮食行为中的重要作用提供了强有力的理由。方法：本研究采用定性探索性方法，描述了澳大利亚幼儿保育培训师关于其在幼儿喂养中的作用的知识，态度和做法。结果：所有参与者都同意，喂养幼儿是他们作用的重要组成部分，但描述了促进健康饮食和采用反应迅速的喂养方式所面临的挑战。这些包括个人对食物的信仰和经验，儿童喂养的双向性，父母要求的冲突和/或基于中心的政策和程序的不支持。结论：有关儿童保育部门中反应迅速的儿童喂养做法的培训应包括所有儿童保育人员；旨在提高与父母的关系效力和沟通技巧；并授权育儿人员领导组织变革。为此，托儿中心需要提供基于中心的连贯健康饮食政策，其中应包括提供健康食品和理想的喂养习惯。