The Fundamental Link Between Nutrition and Mental Health

The Fundamental Link Between Mental Health and Nutrition

Melissa Lin: Now we can begin. On today’s webinar, we’re pleased to have Mr. Robert Harris, Ms. Shonika Kwarteng, and Mr. Steve Shuman joining us as moderators later in the session. Now I’ll turn it over to Steve.

Steve Shuman: Thanks, Melissa. Welcome, everybody. I’m Steve Shuman. I’m the Director of Outreach and Distance Learning for the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety. I’m excited to be part of this team presenting today with two of my best colleagues. We have a lot of folks in our National Center, but Shonika and Rob are really very special. We’ve really worked hard to make this webinar relevant for you. Shonika, you want to introduce yourself?

Shonika A. Kwarteng: Thank you, Steve. I am Shonika Kwarteng. I am one of the training and technical assistance associates here with the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety. By trade, I am a registered dietician.

I started my career as a clinician working in public health settings before I found my love in Head Start. I have worked in the program level as a nutrition coordinator, a manager, a director, and a consultant for over 15 years. As Steve mentioned, I am excited about today’s webinar and I’m grateful to share this space with Steve and Rob to bring this webinar to life. Rob, I’m going to turn it over to you.

Robert Harris: Thank you, Shonika. My name is Rob Harris, also a senior training specialist from the National Center for Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety and a licensed professional counselor in the District of Columbia. I’m excited to be a part of this training with you all and look forward to this time.

Steve: Next slide. Today, we have a lot to cover as you can see from this slide — lots of objectives. But we really want to explore this idea of the intersection between nutrition and mental health, how programs promote positive mental health and nutrition habits, how food affects children’s brain development, and how food affects the ability to regulate emotions and support resilience for everybody.

Important to our work is how to engage families in conversations about these two topics. Finally, some strategies early care and education program staff can try in their programs themselves that would focus on nutrition and social emotional development. Next slide, please.

Since its inception 60 years ago, children’s nutrition and mental health have been two foundational elements of Head Start services. Today, we will be talking about the many ways that healthy nutrition promotes young children’s growth and social emotional development.

Early childhood mental health is really the same as social emotional development. Social and emotional development is one of the five central domains in the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework, otherwise known as the ELOF. It is critical for lifelong development and learning.

Head Start programs have always prioritized nutrition because nutrition is critical to children’s healthy growth and development. Eating healthy foods helps children get the nutrients their bodies need to stay active and engage in learning.

The Head Start program performance standards and the USDA child nutrition programs meal patterns align with policy goals to reduce chronic diet-related health conditions and foster positive childhood experiences.

The Center on the Developing Child cites three basic foundations of lifelong health, including a stable and responsive environment of relationships; safe and supportive physical, chemical, and built environments; and sound and appropriate nutrition.

Extensive research demonstrates that sound and appropriate nutrition in early childhood is one of the basic foundations of lifelong health established during the early years. Many of the most prevalent chronic and costly diseases of adulthood, including diabetes, dementia, and cancers are rooted in young children’s experiences and exposures.

Efforts to address these diseases, along with the toll they take to adults as caregivers must also have their roots in early childhood. Next slide. I get to ask questions of Shonika and Rob today. The first one is for you, Rob. What is it? What is mental health for young children?

Robert: Great question, Steve. Childhood mental health conditions affect many children and families. Mental health conditions can begin in early childhood and the prevalence changes with age. This is why children’s mental health always has been, and continues to be, an important topic.

Approximately 10% to 16% of young children experience mental health conditions, including PTSD and anxiety. For babies in poverty, this number can be higher, reaching 22%. According to ZERO to THREE, a recent study estimates that 19% of children aged 2 to 8 have at least one mental health disorder. The current prevalence of early childhood and mental health disorders is around 16%. It’s according to the CDC and NIH, Steve. I’m sorry. There we go.

When we think about mental health and Head Start programs, we should think about children’s social and emotional being. This includes exploring children’s ability to express and regulate their emotions. This includes also the context within their family and community.

It’s important to remember that while mental health as a conversation can feel big, for children birth to 5 and beyond, particularly those in Head Start programs, mental health is social and emotional development.

This includes developing and strengthening healthy relationships with adults, developing and strengthening healthy relationships with other children — their emotional functioning. When we say that, we mean their vocabulary and their ability to express their emotions and a sense of identity and community.

Head Start programs can prevent mental health conditions from developing, and for children with those conditions, ensure they receive appropriate care. But if a child is hungry or doesn’t have the critical nutrients they need, mental health supports may not work as well.

Nutrition is not just about physical growth. It’s foundational for emotional health and self-regulation. Steve, I want to continue by digging deeper into four aspects of social and emotional development.

We have a child’s relationship with the adults around them. Children learn in the context of relationships, their well-being — that sense of safety and love and their ability to regulate the emotions that they feel from infancy begin with the interactions they have with their caregivers during the prenatal period and continue to develop through infancy, toddlerhood, and the primary years.

Healthy interactions between a child and their family members, educators, and members of their community matter. These interactions shape the way the children feel about themselves and the people around them.

There are also relationships they have with other children. The building blocks of how adults engage with their community are established during the formative years as children through the interactions they have with other children.

It is during facilitated interactions by adults with other children that children learn how to share, care, coexist, problem solve, and find purpose within a community. These interactions often take place during play and can be nurtured by the adults around them in early childhood programs and at home.

There also is their emotional functioning. The emotional development of children is once again based on the nurturing adults around them. It is through relationships that they can learn via modeling and labeling and reflection of what they feel.

Adults can help children build their emotional vocabulary, learn techniques and strategies to manage a wide range of developing feelings, and learn how to navigate the wide range of feelings expressed by other people.

Finally, we have that sense of identity. Future leaders, police officers, firefighters, educators, chefs, and many more begin to develop their identities during their early years when the adults around them describe and notice their unique and wonderful characteristics.

While we talk about this, Steve, there are some things that we should factor in that can impact children’s mental health. The first is screen time. The amount of screen time a child has can influence their development.

Screen time can influence nutrition by encouraging mindless eating, reduce opportunities for physical activity, and expose both children and adults to food advertisements that promote low-nutrient foods.

Increased screen time can also influence maladaptive behavior. Emphasizing screen time has also been shown to influence the child-to-parent relationship, language development, mental health disorders, and increase the likelihood of sleep disorders and obesity.

It is really important to emphasize that the impact on a child-parent relationship, because of the connection that the parent has to the child, has overall impact on a healthy development of a child’s social and emotional learning.

There’s another factor we should pay attention to. That’s adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. You also consider various types of chronic stress that children may expose to have an impact on children’s mental health.

Chronic stress can have a detrimental impact on children’s brain and body development. Through the adverse childhood experiences study, Steve, we have found out that it’s outlined that chronic stress experience at an early age can result in increased risk taking and other effects that influence health outcomes in later stages of life. When we talk about mental health, these are some things we should consider.

Steve: Thanks, Rob. You gave us a lot to think about. Now for you, Shonika, how does what we eat affect how we think and feel?

Shonika: Thank you, Steve. That is such an important question. This pyramid gives us a really clear visual to help answer that question. It shows us that nutrition isn’t just about physical growth, it’s the actual foundation for how we think, feel, and relate to others, as Rob just mentioned.

At the base of this pyramid, we see nutrition, and that is where it all begins. Those nutrient-rich foods like iron, protein, calcium, and vitamins A and D support strong bodies. Zinc and those other micronutrients — they help keep our immune systems happy.

Those healthy patterns that we build in early childhood actually help prevent obesity and those other diet-related conditions later in life. As we move up the pyramid, we can see how nutrition directly connects to cognitive development. Those critical nutrients like iron, DHA, and choline are literally building our brain architecture.

When children eat regularly and are exposed to different kinds of food, they’re actually building the neural connections that support memory, focus, and learning. As we continue up this pyramid, we see social and emotional development. This is where food becomes more than just fuel.

Those shared meal times — they offer comfort, they offer connection, and they offer moments for relationship building. They’re also a space where children are learning early communication, whether they’re making choices, whether they’re signaling their hunger and fullness cues, or if they’re practicing turn taking in conversation.

Responsive feeding — where we recognize children, where we recognize and respect because that’s important too — children’s hunger and fullness cues, that helps build trust and emotional safety and secure attachment.

These small everyday interactions lay the foundation for emotional regulation. The Center on the Developing Child, as Steve mentioned in his intro, actually names nutrition along with responsive caregiving and safe environments as one of the three essential foundations for healthy brain development.

While we often talk about physical growth, learning, and social and emotional development as separate areas, this pyramid reminds us that they’re deeply connected, and nutrition is the base that supports them all. Now that we see how nutrition fits into the big picture, let’s take a closer look at what’s actually happening inside the brain during early childhood and how that makes nutrition so important.

Think about this. In just the first 5 years of life, a child’s brain reaches 90% of its adult size. That’s an incredible amount of growth packed into a very short window of time. But this period is full of opportunity and vulnerability.

The brain is forming connections, circuits, and systems that shape how children think, feel, and relate to the world around them. The nutrients that children receive during this critical window don’t just fuel that growth, they become the building blocks for that brain development, that emotional regulation, and that mental well-being.

During this time, the brain is essentially building that foundation for everything. The nutrition that children receive during this period can have lasting impacts on that brain structure and function.

This is why we place, and encourage others to place, a heavy emphasis on mental health, specifically children’s social and emotional well-being. With children’s brains being so malleable at this young age, social and emotional patterns formed at this age can have long-term and very lasting influence on a child’s development.

The nutrition children receive is not just about providing energy, but it is actually building the building blocks for that brain development. The other nutrients that are provided help influence the body’s stress responses and those sleep cycles to other key areas of emotional well-being.

It stands to reason that when children’s nutrition is disrupted, we often see the effects in their ability to learn and connect and socialize with other children and adults. Remember, for young children, learning also happens through play.

Play is where they practice and engage in social skills and emotional learning. They work through those emotions and they build those relationships. When nutrition supports brain development, it directly supports children’s capacity for all of this essential learning.

Next slide. I love this image so much because it reminds us that our brains are always working and requiring a steady flow of energy or calories. Even though the brain is about 2% of our body weight, it uses about 20%, or about 400 calories, of the calories we eat every day. What that really means is about 1/5 of everything we eat goes straight to powering our brain.

Another interesting fact is that our brains are made up of about 60% fat. That means we need quality fats from foods like avocados, nuts, and olive oil to keep our brains healthy and functioning well. I find it interesting how quickly nutrition affects our brain function. It only takes about 20 minutes for the nutrients to start influencing how our brains work.

When children, and even adults, don’t get enough calories or the right nutrients, the brain is often the first that’s affected. This helps us explain why we see such immediate connections between what someone eats and how well they feel.

When we consistently get quality nutrients, we’re not just supporting our immediate brain function, but our long-term brain health as well, our mental focus, and our emotional well-being as we age. Our brain needs several key nutrients to function. We’re going to explore those a little bit more deeply in the next slides. Next slide, please.

We’re going to start with omega 3 fatty acids. These are powerhouse nutrients for brain and mood regulation. We often hear omega 3 fatty acids in the context of heart health, but they’re just as important in how our brain functions.

One of the richest sources of omega 3 is salmon, but you can find it in walnuts, avocados, olive oil, and flax seeds. What makes omega 3 valuable is the way that it helps our brain cells talk to each other. That smooth communication between brain cells support emotional regulation, learning, and focus.

For children, getting enough omega 3s can mean better ability to manage those big emotions that Robb talked about and some of those other transitions. For adults, and that includes parents and our staff as well, it can lead to improved focus, more patience, and emotional readiness during stressful times. Next slide, please.

Next, we’re going to talk about iron. Iron is another important nutrient during those early childhood years. Then beyond iron-rich foods like lean meats, beans, leafy vegetables, and fortified cereals, they support children’s growth in multiple ways.

First, they strengthen our immune systems — that helps us fight off illness. They also give us the energy we need to stay alert, focused, and engaged throughout the day. Many people don’t realize that iron deficiency can show up as a behavioral change before we ever even see physical symptoms.

If you have a child who’s suddenly having trouble paying attention, they may seem more irritable than usual or struggling to regulate their emotions — they may actually be dealing with low iron levels. As adults, we can experience similar effects. We can have difficulty concentrating. We can have increased irritability or just kind of feeling overwhelmed with the daily stresses.

This is why many Head Start programs screen for iron deficiency anemia as a part of their health assessments because when we catch it early, we can address it way before it starts to affect a child’s ability to learn, play, and connect with others. Next slide, please.

Next, let’s talk about those B vitamins. These are incredible nutrients for supporting the nervous system and helping children and adults regulate their emotions throughout the day. When we’re getting enough B vitamins, we’re better equipped to handle transitions, manage those frustrations, and stay emotionally balanced throughout the day.

The great news about B vitamins is that we can find it in many foods that are already common on many of our Head Start menus. Things like whole grains that we can find in oatmeal and whole wheat breads, eggs, leafy green vegetables, fresh fruit, and dairy products like yogurt and milk.

What’s really helpful about B vitamins is how they support our nervous system’s ability to function smoothly. You can think of them as helping the brain’s communication pathways work more efficiently.

When our nervous system is well supported, we often see a stronger ability to regulate emotions across the board. When we get enough B vitamins, that may mean we have more patience and ability to handle stress. Next slide.

Next, we’re talking about zinc and magnesium, two minerals that are absolute game changers when it comes to helping us feel relaxed and supporting healthy sleep patterns. As we all know, good sleep is foundational when it comes to regulating our emotions.

When we’re getting enough zinc and magnesium, we tend to feel more centered and calmer throughout the day and we sleep more soundly at night. For children, what this may mean is fewer bedtime struggles and better emotional regulation throughout the day.

For adults, that means that we’re better equipped to handle the day’s ups and downs. These nutrients can be found in some fun and unexpected places. Pumpkin seeds are packed with both zinc and magnesium.

Whole grains, nuts, and avocados are also some very solid sources, and dark chocolate, which is my favorite — it contains magnesium too. We also know that when we’re getting better sleep, our emotion and well-being improves. Next slide.

Then our last essential nutrient that we’re elevating for mental health is protein. Honestly, protein is kind of a powerhouse because it does triple duty. It helps support muscle growth, it helps build strong bones, and it helps us maintain focus and attention throughout the day.

We can find quality proteins in a wide range of foods. This includes animal-based options like meat, poultry, and fish, but we can also find it in plant-based sources like beans and lentils, yogurt, and tofu.

What’s especially important about protein when it comes to mental health, is how it maintains steady energy and focus. When we get enough protein throughout the day, we’re less likely to hit those energy crashes that can throw off our mood and our behavior. Sometimes that’s something we can see when meals are too far apart or they’re too low in nutrients.

As we wrap up this section on those key nutrients that support mental health, this is also a good time to zoom out and think about the overall quality of the foods that we’re offering. Meals and snacks that are rich in nutrients that we just discussed give everyone the fuel they need to focus to stay calm and build resilience.

But on the flip side, foods that are low in nutritional value, particularly those that are ultra processed tend to leave us with less stable energy and fewer of the nutrients that our brains and those growing bodies need.

Highly or ultra-processed foods are often loaded with added ingredients like those salts and sugars and fats include a lot of other ingredients like preservatives, thickeners, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, flavors — all of the artificial colors and things like that.

Whenever possible, we want to try to use fresh or whole or minimally processed food and avoid some of those ultra-processed ones, because what’s really important is in these early childhood years, our children’s nutritional needs are very high, and we don’t have a lot of opportunities to meet those nutrient needs.

That’s why our focus is on building meals and routines that truly nourish both the mind and the body. With that, I’m going to hand it over to Steve, who’s going to move our conversation into how Head Start services really impacts nutrition and mental health.

Steve: Thanks, Shonika. Next slide. Thank you. I’m so glad you mentioned the quality of food, Shonika. I want to just address access to food. I think we can all agree that adequate nutrition is critical for optimal growth and development.

There’s a relationship between nutrition and mental health that’s very complex. Food insecurity is associated with adverse, social, emotional, and mental health outcomes among children, including symptoms of depression, externalizing behaviors, and internalizing behaviors, and hyperactivity, as well as psychological distress, which can include worrying about not having enough food or their own parents’ well-being.

Children who endure inadequate nutrition and food insecurity during childhood can experience poor health outcomes for the rest of their life. Next slide.
Robert: Steve, that’s what makes Head Start [programs] awesome. Because at Head Start and within Head Start programs, we emphasize whole foods and well-balanced meals, which support healthy development and prevent chronic illness. This results in children having the nutritional support and energy they need to engage in play.

Head Start programs have screen-free meals and promote reduced screen time to encourage social interaction and help children focus on hunger cues, along with prioritizing other positive nutritional habits outlined later in the presentation.

Lastly, Head Start programs focus on cultivating safe environments that promote protective childhood experiences that help mitigate the effects of adverse childhood experiences by providing trainings like the one that you’re in, resources, and education on the impact of trauma on children, adults, and families.

Steve: Thanks, Rob. Head Start services really do increase children’s and family’s access to healthy food and that reduces the risk of food insecurity and all those associated negative health outcomes.

Supporting access to affordable, sufficient, and healthy foods can have lifelong impacts on children’s health and well-being. All of these Head Start practices, services, and requirements you see on this slide really do address nutrition-related health concerns. Take just a moment to look at that. Think about what you’re doing in your programs.

Then let’s move to the next slide, where you get to show us in the chat: what are some ways your program integrates both nutrition and mental health concepts for infants, toddlers, or preschoolers? You can just pop that in the chat. We’d love to see what you have to say.

Here we go. Family-style meals. Glad that many people are practicing family-style dining. It’s really a hallmark of Head Start and one that we want to see everywhere. Weekly classroom activities, infant feeding on demand, meals with children, family strength assessment — I love that. Nutrition activities. Parent workshops with WIC.

Thank you for contributing so much. Keep it coming. Gardening, my favorite. OK. I’m sorry. I should have apologized in advance. I’m getting over a cold. If I cough, that’s why. Next slide. This is a question for both Rob and Shonika. How does food affect the ability to regulate emotions and support resilience in both children and in adults?

Shonika: Well Steve, that is such an important question. I’m going to take us on a little bit of a science lesson as best I can. The gut and brain connection actually gives us some amazing insight into exactly how food affects our ability to regulate our emotions and build resilience.

The gut-brain connection is an emerging area of research that’s helping us understand why nutrition and mental health are deeply linked. It directly answers your question about how food impacts our emotional regulation.

You might be surprised to sometimes hear the gut referred to as our “second brain.” That’s for good reason. When I say gut — and I’m going to put that in parentheses — that’s such a nutrition term. But what I’m really talking about is our digestive tract.

With that, our gut and our brain, they talk to each other all day long through a complex communication link that scientists call the “gut-brain axis.” You can think of this as a busy two-way highway of communication that’s kind of happening all day long.

Inside of our gut lives an amazing community of tiny organisms. You have your bacteria, you have your fungi, and you have these other microorganisms. This all makes up what is known as our gut microbiome. This ecosystem is unique to each of us, just like our fingerprints. These microbes don’t just help us digest food, but they also play a huge role in both our physical and mental health.

I like to think of the gut microbiome like a classroom full of children during family-style mealtime. You know how you have children that naturally take on different roles that make that mealtime successful? Some children are the passers and some are the encouragers trying to help those hesitant eaters try new foods.

Some are peace keepers — just trying to keep everything cool and organized during meal times. Then you have those that are cleaners. They love to clean the plate, they love to dump the plate, and all of that.

That’s the same with the gut bacteria. They each have their own jobs. Some bacteria are the digesters; some are the mood makers that produce that serotonin and dopamine and other feel-good chemicals. Some are the protectors and others are the communicators, sending messages between your gut and your brain.

When you eat a diet that has a lot of variety, you’re supporting the different types of bacteria with their own important job. Here’s what’s really incredible — about 95% of serotonin, that feel-good hormone that all of us want more of, is actually produced in our gut and not in our brain, like many people think.

When our microbiome is well fed and well balanced, the more resilient and healthier it becomes. Everything tends to run a lot more smoothly. Not just digestion, but our mood, our focus, and our stress responses too.

What that means is that the health of our gut also impacts our mental and emotional well-being. The question then becomes, how do we support this gut ecosystem? Actually, the answer is pretty simple — with a diet of variety.

That includes those fiber-rich foods like fruits and vegetables and whole grains that help feed that good bacteria. Then you have your probiotic foods. Things like yogurt, kimchi, kombucha, and sauerkraut add more helpful bacteria to our gut. Then we have prebiotic foods, things like bananas, oats, and garlic that help nourish and feed that good bacteria and encourage its growth within our gut system.

When our guts get out of balance or they’re inflamed, our bodies tend to produce more of that stress hormone like cortisol, which then makes that emotional regulation harder. When we nourish our guts with balanced meals, especially foods that are rich in antioxidants, fiber, and those healthy fats, we give it what it needs to reduce inflammation and keep those mood regulating systems working well.

Next slide, please. Even though we just talked about how our gut health supports emotional balance, timing and consistency in eating matters just as much. When we talk about those nutrition patterns throughout the day, they directly affect our ability to regulate our emotion.

That’s not just for the children. That’s for us too. When we skip meals or we eat high-sugar snacks, we often see mood swings and fatigue and difficulty concentrating and even poor impulse control.

Here’s something important to consider. If you have a child that’s appearing dysregulated or disruptive, it might not be an emotional or behavioral issue at all. It could be them responding to unstable blood sugar.

Young children are especially sensitive to those dips and those spikes in their blood sugar. One moment they can seem fine, and the next minute, they may be irritable. They may be unable to focus, they may be overwhelmed, or they may completely shut down.

We might miss this as being a nutrition-related situation, because sometimes gaps in nutrition can show up as behavioral concerns long before we see physical symptoms. Here’s a very key takeaway.

When children and adults have consistent access to balanced meals and snacks throughout the day, we’re able to regulate our behavior and our emotions. That can improve dramatically.

This consistent nutrition doesn’t just help us with our day-to-day emotional regulation. It actually helps build something even more powerful over time. That’s resilience, or our inner ability to cope with stress, bounce back from challenges, and stay connected with others. Rob is going to walk us through how nutrition supports resilience.

Robert: I sure will, Shonika. Well-nourished children consistently show higher scores on social competence, emotional understanding, and self-regulation measures. They have a greater capacity to cope with stress and more stable emotional responses.

Children who eat a nutritionally balanced diet are more likely to have better peer relationships and more resilience. When children’s basic nutritional needs are met, they have more mental and emotional resources available for learning and social development.

These same principles apply to adults. Diets high in added sugars and low in nutrient density are associated with greater emotional dysregulation. When caregivers and staff maintain a balanced nutrition, they demonstrate improved stress management and are more consistent and have more consistent energy for responsive caregiving.

This is important in early childhood settings where adults’ resilience directly supports child resilience. When adults have the nutritional foundation for emotional stability, they have greater capacity to provide responsive caregiving.

By supporting children’s and adults’ nutrition, we create an environment where everyone has the physiological resources needed for resilience. This connection underscores why nutrition is integral to mental health services.

Nutrition and sleep are interconnected. Caffeine can affect our regulation differently throughout the day. Yep, in the morning, caffeine can boost our alertness. In the afternoon, it may increase our anxiety. In the evening, caffeine can disrupt our sleep.

Since caffeine can stay in our systems for 4 to 6 hours, finding your personal balance is key. While it can boost alertness, energy, and overall feeling of well-being, too much can cause sleep problems, jitters, and stomach discomfort.

The 2020 and 2025 dietary guidelines for Americans recommend no more than 400 milligrams per day, which is equal to about four or five cups of coffee. Speaking of sleeping, our evening eating habits also affect our sleep quality.

Heavy meals such as meals with fast foods, fried food, et cetera, or meals with sugar foods, you know, sodas, sports drinks, et cetera, can disrupt our sleep. Ideally, try to have evening meals 2 to 3 hours before sleep and avoid heavy meals or high-sugar foods at night.

It is important to note that nutrition and balance, whether it’s too many or too few nutrients, can affect the quality of our sleep, which affects our physical and our emotional stability. The nutrition mental health link is just as important for staff as it is for children. We want to emphasize that.

Let’s look at individual staff practices and leadership approaches that support this connection. You see some of those on the screen right now. Effective staff practices include scheduled and restorative breaks between activities.

Creating restorative rest periods allow for the body to process nutrients effectively and restore energy levels needed for engaging children. Team support systems and clear boundaries prevent burnout, which directly impacts nutritional habits and mental well-being.

When staff prioritize their own nutrition and well-being, they have a greater capacity for responsive caregiving and emotional co-regulation with children. From a leadership perspective, modeling balanced eating practices sets the tone for the entire program. When directors and supervisors make time for proper meals, rather than skipping lunch or eating on the go, they demonstrate that they value nutrition.

Strategic scheduling that accounts for staff nutrition needs isn’t just nice, it’s necessary for quality care. Leaders who prioritize staff breaks and daily schedules recognize the connection between staff and child well-being.

When leaders create environments that support regulation through nutrition, they also create better conditions for children’s development. This integrated approach benefits everyone in the early childhood environment.

We know and talked earlier about the value of family-style meals for children. This can also be applied to how we support adults. Breaking bread together is more than sharing food. It’s about sharing presence, stories, and connection.

Around the table, we find comfort and a space to be seen and heard. In a world that often moves too fast, the simple act of eating together reminds us that human connection is one of the most nourishing things we have.

Steve: Rob, I love the piece about human connection. One of our roles in early care and education programs is working with families. I’m asking both of you, how do we partner with families about children’s nutritional and social and emotional development?

Robert: Steve, I’m glad you asked. Feeding young children is more than nutrition. It’s about relationships. It’s deeply personal connection. Families bring cultural traditions, emotions, and histories with them when it comes to how they nourish and care for their children.

Our role as professionals is to partner with them in a way that honors and respects these experiences. When we truly partner with families, we can take the stress and anxiety out of feeding. Families have rich insights to offer, feeding routines that work for them, foods that their babies or toddlers enjoy and ones that they don’t like, and feeding approaches that respect their child’s individuality.

By listening and collaborating, we strengthen the foundation for responsive feeding. This is where adults and caregivers recognize and appropriately respond to a child’s hunger and fullness cues. This builds trust, communication skills, and emotional security.

Each infant and toddler has their own unique feeding journey because growth and development unfold at their own pace. Partnering with families ensures that children not only receive the nutrition they need, but also have positive, trust-building feeding experiences.

When we think about how caregivers build trust, one meal at a time, it mirrors how we build trust with families, one conversation at a time. What cultural or emotional connections to feeding have you observed in your work with families?

Your insights here will enrich our shared understanding, just as each family’s unique perspective enriches our work. I hope we see a few responses in the chat. When a baby signals hunger and receives prompt, warm responses, they learn that their communication mattered and their needs will be met.

When a toddler’s “all done” signal is respected, they learn body autonomy and self-regulation. Over time, these small everyday moments form the foundation of emotional security. Through feeding relationships, children learn turn taking, communication, and the give-and-take of healthy relationships.

The focus on relationships is why we’re cautious about feeding practices that pressure children, like encouraging one more bite or using food for reward or punishment. These approaches can disrupt the child’s ability to trust their internal cues and weaken the feeding relationship.

Supporting families to understand the relational heart of feeding can really make a big difference. It’s not just food on the plate, but about the connections being built. While we’re keeping social and emotional learning in mind and building the quality of bonds established and built during infancy, meal time can be a great way for toddlers and preschoolers to learn many skills.

During mealtime, children can expand their vocabulary around food. It’s also a great time for children to practice skills like setting the table, simple cooking tasks with the support of an adult, of course, and learning how to hold and pass foods to support their self-confidence and social skills. Mealtime is also a great time for children to share stories about their day with the adults around them to help children develop important communication and social emotional skills.

One of the most powerful things we can do is help families feel confident and supported, not judged, when it comes to food. When supporting families and making nutritional changes, we want to keep it practical and respectful.

Everyday moments like mealtime or grocery shopping provide natural opportunities for conversations connecting food and feelings. Simple messages focusing on food as fuel work better than complicated food rules.

Instead of labeling food as good or bad, we can help children and families understand how food helps us become strong, calm, or focused. It becomes a conversation about well-being. Ask open-ended questions like, how does this food help our brain or body feel today? Or, how do you think this food helps your body or brain today?

Encourage children to make connections between food and feelings. Honoring cultural, food, and traditions is particularly important. Traditional diets and meals eaten by all families offer excellent nutrition and emotional connections to their heritage. When we help families build on their existing food traditions rather than try to replace them, we support both nutrition and emotional well-being. Shonika.

Shonika: We can shift to some practical strategies that we can use to support both their child and their own emotional well-being through nutrition. When we talk with families about helping children regulate through nutrition, we want to remember that adults’ nutritional needs also affect our own regulation.

These strategies that I’ll share, they work for everyone. We can start with that idea of building a balanced plate. Think of it as laying the foundation for steady energy throughout the day.

You want complex carbs for long-lasting energy. I know carbs get a bad rap, but we really want to focus on those complex carbs. Those healthy fats that help fuel the brain and power the brain, protein for lasting satisfaction, and those colorful fruits and vegetables that are packed with nutrients.
Remember our earlier conversation when we were talking about gut health? This is where those probiotic and prebiotic foods come in. They help keep that gut-brain communication system strong, which we established plays an important role in emotional regulation.

Here’s something really important for us to hear. Start your day with breakfast, because it really does set the tone for how we feel and function throughout the rest of the day. Regular meals throughout the day help keep our blood sugars stable and different things like that.

What we also know is because breakfast is such a critical foundation for children’s learning and regulation, the Head Start program performance standards also recognizes this, and that is why it’s a requirement that we’re offering nutritious breakfast to children that meet those USDA child nutrition guidelines.

We can also encourage calming, mood-supportive foods like colorful berries and leafy greens that we mentioned earlier. All of these foods are very rich in antioxidants that can help reduce that inflammation, which has also been linked to depression. Those omega 3 foods that we talked about like fatty fish and avocados help support that brain cell communication, again, allowing us to regulate our emotions.

Finally, we cannot underestimate the power of hydration. Even mild dehydration can cause irritability and affect our ability to focus. Keep your system hydrated. You don’t only have to drink plain water; you can drink herbal teas.

You can also eat foods that are very water rich. Things like cucumbers, lettuce, and watermelon. All of these help support that mood brain function. It also keeps us hydrated. For families who are experiencing stress — which honestly, let’s just put it out there, we’re all experiencing some level of stress these days.

These nutrition approaches can be an important part of their overall wellness strategy, because when we’re all nutritionally supported and regulated, we’re better able to co-regulate with our children, especially during those stressful moments.

Steve: A few slides ago, Rob posed this question: what cultural connections or emotional connections to feeding have you seen in your work with children and with families? We didn’t see anything in the chat. I hope you’ve had a chance to think about that question and maybe add some of your thoughts in the chat. We’re looking forward to seeing those, but we are going to move forward.

This is my last question to Shonika and Rob — what are some nutrition activities to promote healthy nutrition and social and emotional wellness? We’re all looking for something to do.

Shonika: Yes. Well Steve, that is another great question. There are so many wonderful ways to integrate nutrition awareness into our social and emotional teaching practices. I’m going to share some age-specific approaches that work really well.

For infants, we can start with responsive feeding practices. They’re at the heart of everything that we do, as Rob mentioned before. Because as caregivers, when we recognize and we respond appropriately to baby’s hunger and their fullness cues, we’re doing much more than just providing nutrition: we’re also building trust and secure attachment. We’re forming those early communication skills. Those consistent, responsive mealtime routines become the foundation for emotional security.

With toddlers, family-style meals are incredible and powerful for building independence in those social skills. As a part of the Head Start community, we know the many benefits of family-style meals. You know those pleasant meal times, those communication skills development, and that positive role modeling.

This approach allows children to practice that self-regulation and decision making while meeting their nutritional needs. Then for preschoolers, we can make those explicit connections between food and feelings. We can use storybooks about food and feelings.

We can ask questions like, “How do you feel after you eat something crunchy or after you eat something smooth?” These activities help children develop that emotional vocabulary while exploring nutrition concepts.

We can also cue them in on their own hunger and fullness cues. We can ask them questions like, does your tummy feel full? Does your tummy want more food? This helps them build meal autonomy and helps continue with that mindful eating connection. We can also involve them in meal planning and preparation, which continues to develop that nutrition awareness.

Something that’s really practical for staff is to start observing connections between meals, snacks, and behavior. Do you have a particular child who shows behavior changes before lunch or after certain snacks?

These observations can inform both nutrition and mental health support strategies. When I was a coordinator, that information was valuable when children were showing different symptoms or concerns.

Don’t forget about partnering with those health professionals like registered dieticians, mental health consultants, and Mental Health Services advisory committees. This group can provide valuable insights for these integrated approaches that truly support the whole child.

Now, these foundational practices that I’ve described really set the stage for some more specific learning experiences. With that, Rob, can you share some concrete examples of activities that connect nutrition and social and emotional development?

Robert: Well, I can Shonika. We have heard many great examples and hopefully we saw a few in the chat just a couple specific learning experiences that connect nutrition with social and emotional development. There’s garden-based learning, which naturally integrates nutrition and education with social emotional development.

From a mental health perspective, gardening provides multiple benefits. There’s the sensory experience of touching the soil, smelling the herbs, and observing how plants grow and support regulation. There’s research that shows that time spent in natural environment, even small garden spaces, can reduce stress hormone in both children and adults.

From a nutritional perspective, children who participate in growing food show an increased willingness to try vegetables and fruits they’ve helped to grow. This hands-on connection to food sources builds nutrition literacy in ways that discussion just can’t.

Gardening naturally promotes attention, present moment awareness, and all the skills that support the ability to regulate emotion. We can ask questions like, “How does it feel to care for something living?” or “How do our bodies feel like eating foods that we grow ourselves?” to continue to build children’s emotional vocabulary.

From early care and education, farm ECE increases children access to fresh, healthy foods. It also helps children learn more about food and gardening. The CDC has information on this website to help states and programs get started or extend their farm to ECE initiatives. There should be a link in one of the resources.

Food and feeling journals — think about that, encourage children to connect food experiences with emotional awareness. You can also create a group activity by taking photos of meal times, later discussing them with children.

Some sample questions could be, “How did we feel when we tried the sweet potatoes?” or “What happened in our bodies when we drank cold water?” This can create opportunities for continued conversation about food and feelings. It’s also a wonderful communication tool for families.

Involving families in nutrition learning experiences extends learning from the classroom or other ECE settings. This is the home environment. Providing nutrition education, cooking classes, grocery store tours, menu planning, and shared meals gives families hands-on learning opportunities, which can reduce loneliness and build community and social cohesion.

Establishing partnerships with farmers’ markets, cooperative extension agencies, WIC programs, and other local nutrition programs can help programs support families’ nutrition goals. As we bring our discussion to a close, let’s highlight key messages about the fundamental link between mental health and nutrition.

First, it’s important to remember that early childhood mental health isn’t separate from development. It is a child’s social and emotional development. When we support these domains, we’re supporting children’s mental health.

Nutrition is a fundamental building block for brain development. The nutrients children receive directly impact their brain’s architecture and function, which in turn supports their capacity for social engagement, regulation, and relationships.

The nutrition-emotion connection extends beyond children to the adults who care for them. The quality of nutrition during everyday interactions from responsive feeding in infancy to family-style meals builds emotional resilience for everyone involved. When we intentionally integrate nutrition and mental health approaches in our programs, we create more effective support systems. This integration leads to better outcomes in both domains and more holistic support for children and families. Steve, thanks for asking some wonderful well thought out questions.

Steve: Well, thanks for your answers, Rob and Shonika. We have lots of resources on the handout that’s been posted in the chat, both as a URL and as a PDF. This slide and the next slide identify some citations or references that we have used to build today’s webinar.

There are links to all of those that you can download when you download the PDF of the slides. If you weren’t able to access the handout from today’s chat, it will be part of the follow-up email that you receive in the next day or so that has the recording, the handout, the link to the evaluation, which has a link to the certificate. Next slide, please. Oh, I don’t think we have any time for questions because it’s the top of the hour. Melissa, take it away.

Melissa: Well, I just want to say a big thank you to our presenters Rob, Shonika, to our moderator Steve, and to all of you for joining us today and engaging in this important topic. Thank you for spending a part of your day with us.

On the screen, you’ll see the evaluation link or QR code. We’ll also drop it into the chat box. Please complete the evaluation. When you do complete it, you will get a link to download your certificate.

Thank you so much for your time. If you have any additional questions after today, please contact us at health@ecetta.info. You can also find today’s resources in the resources handout. As Steve mentioned, we’ll be sending that out to everyone who registered. You can go to the health section of the Head Start website and subscribe to our mailing list if you haven’t already. Thank you so much, everyone.