Exploring the obesity prevention potential of early childhood education services

Abstract

New Zealand has one of the highest Early Childhood Education (ECE) participation rates in the OECD with over 95 percent of three and four-year-olds attending at least 6 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. New Zealand also has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the world, with one in three preschoolers categorized as overweight or obese. ECE services have the potential to influence a child's diet, food preferences, eating behaviours and physical activity, yet we have little information about how ECE policies and practices contribute to body size outcomes. This research collected information about nutrition and activity in an electronic survey of 257 ECE services then used analyses of the policies, menus and survey responses to construct a composite index which summarised and ranked the obesity prevention potential of the participating services. An ecological model of the contributors to overweight and obesity in childhood (Harrison et al. 2011), informed by Brofenbrenner's socioecological approach to child development, provided five domains for the index: nutrition and activity-related opportunities and resources, nutrition and activity-related practices, and relational attributes or values. The survey found wide variation in ECE policy and practice by service type and neighbourhood socioeconomic position. We will explain how these data were used to develop the composite index. The resulting index scores (overall and for each domain, analysed by ECE service characteristics) will then be presented to show the varying obesity prevention potential of ECE environments in New Zealand. Reference: Harrison K, et al. 2011. Toward a Developmental Conceptualization of Contributors to Overweight and Obesity in Childhood: The Six-Cs Model. Child Development Perspectives 5 (1): 50-58. Key words: child health; food, nutrition; obesity; education; health-related behaviours;