Do early education environments support, challenge or undermine eating behaviours in the home? Preliminary findings from Growing Up in New Zealand

Abstract

Introduction: New Zealand has one of the highest Early Childhood Education (ECE) participation rates in the OECD with over 95% of 3 and 4-year-olds attending 6 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. This research aimed to investigate nutrition-related practices in both ECE services and the homes of New Zealand preschoolers, comparing and contrasting these two environments. Methods: Quantitative data about nutrition-related policy and practices were collected in an electronic survey of 257 ECE services located in the same location as the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal cohort (n=6211), allowing for linkage between datasets. Factor analysis of survey variables was used to create a Healthy ECE Environment Index. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were performed to test for associations between Healthy ECE Environment score and home nutrition-related behaviours and demographics. Results: A subset of 1116 children were successfully matched to 215 ECE environments. Preliminary results show most ECE services struggle to promote healthy eating, many staff not following best practice and menus that do not meet nutrition guidelines. Services in neighbourhoods with low and high socio-economic status scored better on the Health Environment Index compared to medium. [Additional analyses described above will be undertaken before the conference and added to the abstract before publication]. Conclusions: With growing evidence that dietary habits and preferences are set early in childhood, an exploration of the role that both the home and ECE play in supporting healthy development is critical. This study quantifies the current ‘mismatch’ between home and ECE nutrition-related behaviours.