July 2014 Summary

The best way to affect the health status of the future of our country is to educate children at a young age. If you can make a positive impact on young children, they will be more likely to follow healthier habits as adults and continue to spread these habits on to future generations. These studies aimed to intervene by addressing both children and their parents who are low-income at the daycare center setting. The goal was to address the childhood obesity problem and get children to begin consuming more fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products. Results show that when you provide nutrition education, it is possible to positively affect the diets of preschool-aged children. The questions presented for discussion allowed participants to think about how they would handle educating children from their own perspective in order to make the biggest impact possible.

Q1: 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? 

Many participants pointed out that there needs to be an incentive to get parents to participate in an educational series. While the topic of their child’s nutrition is important, participating in a class can be an inconvenience, and even less appealing if it is held at strange times and if they don’t get anything out of it. Tina had a great idea of creating magnets with information on them to allow the message from the classes to be on display in the home, and Carrie thought of a great idea to send a newsletter home with the kids for the parents to read. Sammy suggested providing a meal to the parents who participate in the class, which I think would really improve participation. Thinking of new, creative ways to encourage parental involvement is something I think we will have to do the rest of our careers.

Q2: This study aimed to increase fruit, vegetable, and low-fat or fat-free dairy consumption. If you were to design a nutrition-education program for preschoolers, what areas of their diet would you focus on?

While we could focus on every single food group to teach children about, it is not very practical that they will retain all of the information provided to them. A better option, like this study showed, is focusing on just a few areas to make improvements. Most people agreed that fruits and vegetables are the least consumed and most under-appreciated food group for children, and thus this would be the area of focus in a study. Arthur pointed out that following MyPlate guidelines might be the best option, as the diagram is kid-friendly and could be used in an arts-and-crafts activity. Jeanne and Jessica also brought up a good point about providing many different options and cooking methods when presenting fruits and vegetables to children that might allow them to broaden their horizons when eating produce. Picking one area of the diet to focus on and allowing the children to make changes in that area is the best way to make positive nutrition interventions.

Q3: Influencing childhood eating patterns is the first step to improving future generation’s diets. This study focused on preschool-aged children, who may have a lower capacity for understanding nutrition-related messages. How would you aim to influence the diets and knowledge of older children?

Different ages of children will greatly affect their ability to learn and process information. While this study focused on preschool aged children, kids that are K-12 are being left out. When asked how to handle nutrition interventions to a slightly older population, many focused on the fact that we don’t want to encourage weight loss, but instead positive eating habits. Haley pointed out that discussing disease prevention may be a good topic to address with older children, and Tina brought up good points about establishing healthy self-esteem and self-worth at their age. Finally, Brady brought up a great point that the interventions need to be something that the children are exposed to on a regular basis in order to establish trust and truly influence their diets. Interventions that aim to make children healthier need to be geared toward a specific audience, and it is important to understand who the children are that you will be working with.