July 2014 Question #1
Many studies that aim to influence the eating habits of
children struggle to increase parental involvement. What are some strategies
for getting parents more involved in their kid’s nutrition?
posted by Susan @ 1:52 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
You could explain the importance of preventative health and how much eating healthy can impact their child's future. Also offering incentives for completing the study may be a strategy such as a gift card or supplying a healthy dinner. Doing the study after the parent is off work and has time would be more appealing to participants. Catering to their needs and interests of healthy eating also is necessary for involvement. Letting them know the benefits to participating would be helpful.
I think that parents need to understand the health and financial impact of having better eating habits. Parents learned from their parents and that can be a viscious cycle if they're never taught anything different. With so much of their time being spent at school, I believe that they should be taught a lot about nutrition in school. Then encouraging the kids to take home the information and sharing it with their parents. Sometimes it takes the kids to push the parents to let them be involved with the grocery shopping, cooking, and other processes involved with healthy eating. If there were classes for parents to attend while their children are attending, like in the study, I feel like that would be helpful for everyone. Even handing out tips on magnets for them to put on the fridge may be a good reminder.
Some strategies to get parents more involved with their child’s nutrition would be to increase awareness of good nutrition to the parents. Some parents may not realize how important good nutrition for their children is. Sending newsletters home to parents is a great way to get parents involved without them having to make a time commitment to attend meetings. If a school district has an R.D., then they could create monthly nutrition-related newsletters to send home to parents. When I did my rotation at Day Care Resources, they created newsletters for day care centers to send home to parents that explained how the centers were encouraging good nutrition. For example, one newsletter explained to parents how the day care children planted vegetable seeds and how they would make salads with the produce that grows. Then the newsletter provided tips to parents about how they could enact healthy strategies with the children, like building salads at home.
Also, getting parents to purchase healthier foods and to just be more mindful of their child’s diet is important. Also, if parents let children assist them with purchasing and cooking healthy foods they will be more involved with their child’s nutrition. Simply eating meals together around the table increases parental involvement, and the parent then knows exactly what their child is eating.
Overall, I feel like trying to get parents to monitor their child’s nutrition in the home may be more effective than asking them to attend meetings or classes. Like in this study, only a low percentage of parents attended classes, so we should try to get parents to enact healthy nutrition practices in the home. Sending parents newsletters or emails with healthy nutrition tips for their children may be helpful. Also, parents may be more likely to participate in nutrition education if it is offered online, through videos, podcasts, or webinars. This way they won’t have to commit to attending classes, and they can learn in their own home and on their own time.
Haley,
I really like your idea of offering incentives for completing nutrition-related studies. I know whenever I get emailed surveys I sometimes think, "What's in it for me?" So offering something like gift cards could really increase parent participation.
In my opinion, I think that getting parents involved in their child’s nutrition can be a real challenge if nutrition and healthy eating is not a priority for them. If they don’t feel it’s important, it’s hard to convince them to take the time and learn about it. As others have mentioned, getting the parents to realize why it is important and the benefits that healthy eating can have is a great place to start. Hopefully by teaching the parents the importance of healthy eating and what it can do for their children, it may motivate them to become more involved.
I think Haley’s idea of offering an incentive, like a healthy meal, is a great way to get parents to attend the classes. Everyone loves a free meal!
Everyone has such great ideas. I, too, sincerely believe that the importance of the parents in promoting a healthy lifestyle with delicious, nutritious, meals cannot be overstated. Basically, most all children are at the mercy of what their parents provide. A child may eat a meal (or possibly two if there's breakfast) at school/pre-school/day-care, but once they get home and on weekends (and in the summer possibly) they will be eating whatever their parents have available in the house...with that being said, nutrition intervention in children alone may be helpful for the time they are being fed by a school or other institution (which, really, schools and day cares shouldn't be serving anything unhealthy anyways...) but without parental involvement and understanding, the children will be hard pressed to bring those concepts home with them.
So, to get more parents involved, I'd probably say that offering some type of incentive would be a good idea. Everyone likes free stuff...especially adults. Additionally, I would really emphasize the importance of preventative medicine, and more specifically, how having a healthy diet for the entire family can help to decrease the families medical bill(s). I know that when I was growing up, we ate pretty healthy (having a marathon running mother doesn't hurt) and my mom would always say things like, "I'd much rather spend 20 extra dollars a week on green vegetables than have to spend 400 dollars a month on clinic co-pays and diabetes medicine", so really pushing how cost effective it can be in the long run would possibly be effective. I would really point to what the literature says about dietary habits that are developed at a young age and how they stick with the children for a lifetime in many instances. If we can instill proper dietary behaviors at a young age, then we can not only increase their health for the short term, while they are children, but also for the long term as well...which saves money and also allows for a better chance at a prosperous life, which is what every parent wants for their child.
I would also discuss about what the literature says about eating proper breakfasts and just having better diets in general in terms of cognitive improvement and overall performance. It's no secret that college is expensive, so if we can get these kid's fueled up properly from the get go, get those brains working to their fullest capability, that could yield better grades, more involvement, better sports/activity performance and possibly college scholarships or other opportunities. It all really comes full circle when you stop to think about it, so just really emphasizing the long term benefits of sound nutrition habits (and hey...the parents may be even to get back to fitting into those high school jeans along the way...) for the entire family could go a long way.
Also, Caroline, I really love your point about possibly using technology in the on-going effort to increase parental participation. We began this entire discussion by saying that a significant roadblock to healthful nutrition habits in children is parental involvement. I think that using at home technological efforts (e.g. videos, podcasts and webinars...I think someone has been spending too much time talking to Dr. Schumacher....haha) could be very effective. That way, the parent's really have no excuse. They don't have to go out of their way physically, just click a link, sit back with a notebook and a cup of coffee and learn. Great idea.
Everyone is bringing up great suggestions, and I think we're all on the same page when we think that the parents who are going to be involved in these programs are the ones who are already concerned about their child's nutrition. I think the place to start is getting information out to the parents who are less concerned and encourage them to make their family's health a priority.
I agree with Tina that parents need to understand the health and financial impact of eating habits. It might help if they can see the connections from poor eating habits to poor health to expenses for doctor visits and medication. I also agree with Tina that nutrition and how to apply it to food choices should be taught in schools. It frustrates me tremendously that Michelle Obama strongly supports changes in school food regulations to make school food healthier but does not back the education to make students understand why their breakfasts and lunches are being changed.
For some parents, it may be important to determine their perceived barriers to healthy eating as a family and address them. Maybe parents think they can't fix food their kids don't like. Or maybe they think they can't afford healthy food. Whatever the barrier is, if we can show them it's not really a barrier, it will increase the liklihood for parents to help their children eat healthier.
Make it fun. If you have a public talk that you want parents to come to, you have to make it sound fun in the promotional materials. If it sounds like a good time, then parents are probably more likely to want to go. If the kids think it sounds fun, they are more likely to ask mom or dad if they can go. A hands-on activity such as making a small and easy, no-cook meal might be enticing. If possible, incentives might be necessary to increase involvement. Who knows, maybe a daycare center would be willing to offer a 10% discount for the month if parents participated in your program. I think you also have to make it sound easy. If you want parents to get involved, you have to convince them it’s not much burden to them to get involved.
I think anytime you can include paretns in heading up an organization or a new club that is beneficial for children and parents alike. It gets the parents invested in the program and helps facilitate with already available resources. Tina is right though if you can't get them to see the importance of the 'viscious cycle' they will not feel the need for involvement, so that is definately step 1; they need to feel the urgency to be an advocate for their childs health.
Caroline makes a good point about making information available online for parents, through multimedia like podcasts and videos. There are definitely a lot of parents who would be more open to that than attending a class. And I agree with what several others mentioned, which is that we have to find a way to help parents understand the importance of the issue and relevance to their child's health.
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