Independent report

SACN report: feeding young children aged 1 to 5 years

This report from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) covers feeding young children aged 1 to 5 years.

Documents

Feeding young children aged 1 to 5 years - full report

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Annex 1: UK and international recommendations on feeding young children and UK statutory schemes to improve diets in young children

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Annex 2: methods used in the Diet and Nutrition Survey of Infants and Young Children and the National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme

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Annex 3: details of literature search

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Annex 4: selection of studies

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Annex 5: evidence tables

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Annex 6: systematic reviews considered after public consultation

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Annex 7: overlap between identified systematic reviews or meta-analyses

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Annex 8: AMSTAR 2 assessment of identified systematic reviews

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Annex 9: extracted data from primary studies included in the systematic reviews

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Annex 10: evidence grading (systematic reviews)

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Annex 11: additional analyses of National Diet and Nutrition Survey data

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Annex 12: milk substitution analyses

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Annex 13: National Child Measurement Programme

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Details

SACN has undertaken a comprehensive review of the scientific basis of current dietary recommendations for feeding young children aged 1 to 5 years. The report considers:

  • national survey data on food and nutrient intakes and status, the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and dental caries
  • evidence from systematic reviews examining a number of dietary factors and child, adolescent and adult health outcomes, as well as evidence on factors that influence eating and feeding behaviour, and diversification of the diet in the early years

The report includes SACN’s recommendations to government and recommendations for future research. The annexes provide detailed information on the methods used (including literature search), data extraction evidence tables, quality assessment and grading of the systematic review evidence, and additional analyses.

This report forms part of a wider piece of work by SACN considering the evidence underpinning recommendations for feeding children up to 5 years of age, of which the first part, ‘Feeding in the first year of life’, was published in 2018.

You can view documents related to the consultation on the draft report. The documents include comments submitted during consultation and the response to each of these from SACN.

Updates to this page

Published 4 July 2023
Last updated 8 May 2024 + show all updates
  1. Amended summary and full reports as follows: minor edits to SACN membership list; minor edits to some sentences and tables to improve clarity and readability; increased heading levels of the last 6 headings in Chapter 2; amended paragraph 3.79 to correctly state the largest contributor of free sugars intake; corrected citation in paragraphs 8.15 and 8.16 and figures 8.1 and 8.2; edited the footnote numbering and locations in table 10.1 for clarity; and added an entry to the Glossary section for the ‘National Diet and Nutrition Survey’, and changed the citation for the entries 'High income country', 'Lower middle income country', 'Low income country' and 'Upper middle income country'. All other updates were minor formatting changes and the correction of minor typographical errors. The annexes remain unchanged.

  2. First published.

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