Happy Family, Healthy Kids: An Intergenerational Program to Promote Healthy Eating Habits
Overview
- Phase
- N/A
- Intervention
- Not specified
- Conditions
- Healthy Diet
- Sponsor
- Michigan State University
- Enrollment
- 214
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Child Dietary Fruit and Vegetable Intake
- Status
- Completed
- Last Updated
- last year
Overview
Brief Summary
Happy Family, Healthy Kids program, funded by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, is a 14-week healthy eating program aimed to foster "Happy Family & Healthy Kids." The program will target parental emotional eating through a life stress management component, and parents will be coached on making happy and healthy eating behavioral changes at home that will support their children to establish lifelong healthy eating habits. At the end of this project, the investigators expect to have an effective, comprehensive, and sustainable healthy eating program ready to expand to any Head Start center in an urban or rural setting.
Detailed Description
In Project Year 1, the program will be evaluated with about 100 Head Start children, aged 3 to 5 years, and their parents (one parent per family) in four urban and four rural Head Start centers. The investigators will compare the program outcomes between urban and rural settings. All involved Head Start centers will support MSU staff to conduct data collection activities (e.g., online survey completed by parents; height, weight, and blood pressure measures; hair samples collected from both children and parents). MSU staff, along with Head Start staff, will implement the 14-week healthy eating program activities including four components: 1. A 14-week parent Facebook-based program focusing on stress management and healthy eating to reduce emotional eating and increase parents' capacity to initiate healthy eating practices at home 2. Three parent face-to-face or virtual meetings at Head Start centers to connect parents with each other in person, offer healthy cooking tools/classes, and discuss behavioral change strategies and challenges 3. 14-week child "Eat My ABCs" program at Head Start centers to provide an age-appropriate, healthy eating program to children 4. Weekly child letter to parents to connect child learning at the Head Start center with parental practices at home In Project Year 2, the investigators will finalize the program based on the evaluation outcomes in Project Year 1, and work closely with the participating Head Start organizations to disseminate the healthy eating program to all the participating Head Start centers and classes.
Investigators
Jiying Ling
Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria
- •There are ten inclusion criteria (five for preschoolers and five for caregivers).
- •Preschoolers must:
- •Have parental consent.
- •Have child assent if the child is 5 years old.
- •Be 3-5 years of age.
- •Be able to understand and speak English. The intervention will be delivered in English.
- •Be enrolled in the full-day or part-day Head Start program.
- •Caregivers must:
- •Provide consent.
- •Be the primary adult caregiver (≥ 18 years old) for the preschooler. Primary caregiver refers to the one person most responsible for providing care to the preschooler on a daily basis.
Exclusion Criteria
- •There are three exclusion criteria for both caregivers and preschoolers.
- •Preschoolers or caregivers who have medical conditions precluding participating in dietary changes.
- •Preschoolers or caregivers who have diagnosed health conditions known to impact weight (e.g., Prader-Willi Syndrome) or are taking weight-affecting medications (e.g., stimulants).
- •Preschoolers who have diagnosed developmental disabilities (e.g., autism), or caregivers who have diagnosed psychiatric or mental health problems.
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Child Dietary Fruit and Vegetable Intake
Time Frame: Change from baseline child dietary intake at 15 weeks
Child dietary intake will be assessed by the 41-item Block Kids Food Screener. The Block Kids Food Screener is a food frequency questionnaire used to assess dietary intake of fruits, vegetables, dairy, whole grains, protein sources, saturated fat, and added sugars in youth aged 2-17 years old. It has been shown to have significant relationships (r=0.53-0.88) with Nutrition Data System for Research 24-h food recall data. The Block Kids Food Screener has acceptable Cronbach's alphas of 0.76-0.77 for the survey items assessing fruit and vegetable intake among Head Start preschoolers. The completed surveys will be processed and analyzed by NutritionQuest, and the number of cups of fruit and vegetable consumed per day will be used to describe children's fruit and vegetable intake, with a higher number indicating a healthier eating behavior.
Secondary Outcomes
- Child Emotional Overeating(Change from baseline to 15 weeks)
- Child Body Mass Index Z-score(Change from baseline body mass index z-score at 15 weeks)
- Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressure(Change from baseline blood pressure at 15 weeks)