Creating a Positive Food Culture is a reflective educator guide designed to support calm, respectful, and emotionally safe mealtimes in early childhood settings.

Rather than focusing on control, compliance, or outcomes, this guide invites educators to slow down and view food routines through a WholeChild Flow™ lens — recognising mealtimes as powerful moments for connection, regulation, communication, and belonging.

Children are constantly absorbing adult language, tone, and behaviours around food and bodies. This resource supports educators to become more aware of how everyday routines can shape children’s relationships with food, themselves, and others — often without intention or awareness.

This guide is reflective, strengths-based, and non-judgemental. It does not prescribe rigid practices or “rules”, but instead supports educators and teams to notice, reflect, and make small, meaningful shifts that honour children’s individual needs.

This guide supports educators to:

• Create calm, welcoming mealtime environments

• Use respectful, non-pressuring language around food

• View mealtimes as opportunities for co-regulation and connection

• Reflect on personal beliefs, habits, and routines

• Support children’s autonomy, body awareness, and wellbeing

What’s included:

• Clear guidance on positive food culture in early childhood

• Reflection prompts for individual or team use

• Practical considerations for environments, routines, and language

• Alignment with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)(Principles, Practices, and Learning Outcomes)

• A WholeChild Flow™ perspective that replaces correction with connection

Designed for:

• Early childhood educators

• Educational leaders and directors

• Team reflection, staff meetings, and professional learning

• Services seeking gentle, ethical approaches to care routines

This resource reflects the belief that positive food culture is built over time through awareness, intention, and relational practice — not pressure or perfection.