Children ate more added sugar, snack foods and sweetened drinks in the transition from child care to home.

Kids eat fewer healthier foods and take in 22 percent of their day’s added sugar intake in the one hour after they’re picked up from child care, a recent research indicated. The survey looked at children’s food consumption at two periods that can be among the most stressful for caregivers and kids – the transition between home and day care.



Published in the journal Children’s Health Care, the study used nutritional consumption data from 307 children attending 30 child-care centers in Hamilton County, Ohio, between 2009 and 2011. The children were an average of 4.3 years old, and 57 percent were eligible for subsidized meals under the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program, which reimburses child-care institutions for delivering healthful foods.

Children ate an average of 1,471.6 calories a day, the study found, but the kids ate less portions of dairy and vegetables in the hours before and after child-care pickup and drop-off and more added sugar and snack items. In the hour after arriving at a child-care center, the researchers found, the toddlers ate less and took in less added sugar and sweet and salty foods, and were more likely to eat dairy and fruit.

The hour after pickup from child care was the least nutritious, the researchers note, with youngsters eating more added sugar, snack items and sugar-sweetened beverages. The children in the study took in an average of 290.2 calories during that hour — 20 percent of their regular daily caloric intake and nearly 22 percent of the day’s average intake of added sugar.

The higher nutrition in child-care facilities may be because of the dietary guidelines federally supported centers must follow, the researchers concluded. But stress, time restrictions and a parent’s desire to calm or console a child could also be at play, the researchers admitted, suggesting for additional research on “these potentially important transition periods.”

“Every parent knows how busy that time of day can feel. Parents can feel stressed, the kids may be cranky, hungry, or fatigued. There’s nothing wrong eating treats once in a while,” the study’s senior author, Kristen Copeland, an attending physician at Cincinnati Children’s and a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s department of pediatrics, said in a news release. “But that car ride home also can be an opportunity to instill healthier habits instead of less healthy ones.