Communities Putting Prevention to Work
Project Description:
Background: 60% of preschool children spend the majority of their day in childcare homes or centers. Given the current obesity epidemic, it is essential to understand the physical activity and nutrition patterns of these facilities. Methods: Nearly 700 childcare centers and family childcare homes in Miami Dade County completed a self assessment that detailed their practices related to nutrition and physical activity. Results: many are displaying poor initial levels of television viewing and health related lessons. In addition, 86 percent rated as poor in serving skim milk, 44.1 percent assessed as poor for serving 1 percent milk. The majority of child care centers have better outdoor physical activity practices with 94.7 percent rated as excellent, while the family childcare homes indicate better indoor physical activity with 86.4% rated as excellent compared to child care centers at 83.5% rated excellent. Differences were seen between family childcare homes and childcare centers in screen time, health related lessons and within several nutritional items. Conclusions: Given that improvements to policies in child care settings could improve the diets and physical activity behaviors of millions of children and improve their health, state policy efforts to create child care environments that foster healthy eating and physical activity are highly encouraged.
Keyword(s):
Preschool, obesity prevention, nutrition
Core Function(s):
Performing Technical Assistance and/or Training, Performing Research or Evaluation
Area of Emphasis
Education & Early Intervention, Child Care-Related Activities, Health-Related Activities
Target Audience:
Professionals and Para-Professionals
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Limited English, Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Urban
Primary Target Audience Geographic Descriptor:
Single-County
COVID-19 Related Data:
N/A
