Rural Community Partnership to Promote Fitness by Age 5

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal, Rural Community Partnership to Promote Fitness by Age 5, focuses on preventing the development of obesity among young, preschool-age children, by targeting the environment where children are increasingly spending time prior to the start of kindergarten-childcare centers (daycare, preschools, and Head Start centers). The theoretical frameworks of "Diffusion of Innovation" and "Social Marketing" will guide the development of this intervention by researchers and childcare center directors and staff. Support from community, medical, and educational organizations and collaboration with the local McDonald's restaurant, Price Chopper grocery stores, and SUNY-Cobleskill Culinary Institute will facilitate consistency of message. We propose to assess food and physical activity policies and environments at childcare centers, and then collaboratively develop innovative policy and environmental changes to promote healthy eating (especially snacking), decrease behaviors that encourage overeating, increase physical activity, and decrease TV/video viewing at these centers. We propose to develop and provide training sessions for staff at childcare centers that promote these policy changes and environmental innovations. As the primary outcome, we will evaluate the difference in the prevalence of child obesity at age 5, i.e., at the time of kindergarten entrance, between the intervention and the control communities. At the conclusion of this research project, a childcare center-based environmental approach to prevent the development of child obesity will have been developed, implemented, and evaluated. This obesity prevention program will be transferable to other childcare centers to improve the health of America's children.