Our Year of Healthy Living: A social marketing intervention for child care & home

描述(申请人提供)：幼儿时期是建立健康饮食和体育活动行为的关键时期，可能会影响儿童患肥胖症和其他慢性病的短期和长期风险。不幸的是，在这个重要的发育阶段，许多学龄前儿童已经养成了不健康的饮食和体育锻炼行为。家庭和育儿是塑造幼儿饮食和体育活动行为的两个重要影响领域。让这两个领域共同努力的干预措施将确保儿童得到一致的健康信息。针对儿童保育环境的干预措施很少，其中许多都没有尝试让父母参与。那些确实包括父母部分的人通常使用低强度策略(例如，时事通讯、家庭作业)。需要以实质性和有意义的方式让托儿中心和家长都参与进来的创新方法。社会营销已被确定为以儿童为目标的健康促进努力的一种有前途的方法。社会营销负责人认识到，需要让所有其行为必须受到影响的个人参与才能带来改变，并提供强调好处的信息，并克服与行为改变相关的障碍。社会营销原则在以儿童保育为基础的干预措施中的应用非常有限。这项拟议的研究是一项双臂随机对照试验(86个中心和860名儿童)，以评估 为期12个月的干预--我们的健康生活年--对学龄前儿童(3-4岁)及其成年照顾者(父母和儿童保育者)的饮食和身体活动行为进行干预。干预将使用在托儿中心发起的一系列社会营销活动 包括视觉提示、教育材料、活动、竞赛和电子消息，以传递有针对性的信息。这项研究的主要结果是儿童非久坐活动的分钟数(通过加速计测量)和饮食质量(使用健康饮食指数评分进行评估)。次要结果将评估：儿童的身体质量指数、儿童保育中心和家里的食物和身体活动实践，以及儿童保育提供者和父母的健康行为。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early childhood is a critical period for establishing healthy diet and physical activity behaviors that may influence children's short- and long-term risk for obesity and other chronic diseases. Unfortunately, during this important stage of development, many preschool children have already adopted unhealthy diet and physical activity behaviors. Home and child care are two important spheres of influence that shape young children's diet and physical activity behaviors. Interventions engaging both spheres in a coordinated effort would ensure that children receive consistent health messages. There have been very few interventions that have targeted the child care setting, many of which made no attempt to engage parents. Those that did include a parent component generally used low-intensity strategies (e.g., newsletters, homework assignments). Innovative approaches that engage both the child care center and parents in a substantial and meaningful way are needed. Social marketing has been identified as a promising approach for health promotion efforts targeting children. Social marketing principals recognize the need to engage all individuals whose behaviors must be affected to bring about change, and to offer messages that emphasize benefits, and overcome barriers associated with behavior change. The application of social marketing principles in child care-based interventions is very limited. The proposed study is a two-arm, randomized controlled trial (86 centers and 860 children) to evaluate the effect of a 12-month intervention - Our Year of Healthy Living - on the diet and physical activity behaviors of preschool children (3-4 years) and their adult caregivers (parents and child care providers). The intervention will use a series of social marketing campaigns initiated in the child care center that incorporate visual cues, educational materials, activities, contests, and e-messages to deliver targeted messages. This study's primary outcomes are children's minutes of non-sedentary activity (measured via accelerometers) and diet quality (assessed with Healthy Eating Index scores). Secondary outcomes will assess: children's body mass index, food and physical activity practices in the child care center and at home, and health behaviors of child care providers and parents.