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

描述（由申请人提供）：幼儿期是建立健康饮食和体育活动行为的关键时期，可能会影响儿童短期和长期患肥胖症和其他慢性疾病的风险。不幸的是，在这个重要的发展阶段，许多学龄前儿童已经采取了不健康的饮食和体育活动行为。家庭和儿童看护是影响幼儿饮食和身体活动行为的两个重要方面。使这两个领域协同努力的干预措施将确保儿童得到一致的健康信息。很少有针对儿童保育环境的干预措施，其中许多没有试图让父母参与进来。那些包含父母成分的通常使用低强度策略（例如，时事通讯，家庭作业）。需要创新的方法，使托儿中心和家长以实质性和有意义的方式参与进来。社会营销已被确定为针对儿童的健康促进工作的一种有前途的方法。社会营销负责人认识到需要吸引所有的个人，他们的行为必须受到影响才能带来改变，并提供强调利益的信息，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。建议的研究是一项两组随机对照试验（86个中心和860名儿童），以评估a

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.