Start Early: Promoting healthy eating in child care settings

A new position paper released by the American Dietetic Association makes the case for establishing benchmarks for nutrition in child care settings, including the following guidelines:

• Foods and beverages served in child care should be nutritionally adequate and consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.



• Child care providers should model and encourage healthful eating for chilren.



• Child care providers should work with children to understand feelings of hunger and satiety and should respect children's hunger and satiety cues, once expressed.



• Child care providers should receive appropriate training in child nutrition, and nutrition education for children and families should be a component of the child care program.
  


• Child care providers should work with families to ensure that foods and beverages brought from home meet nutrition guidelines.

ADA also outlines a role for policy change to promote healthful eating and active play.

You can read a related article here:

Study: Obesity prevention should focus on day care

Experts say the fight against childhood obesity should have a new focus: day care.
Studies show that about 82% of American children under age 6 are in child care outside the home while their parents work.

That means many meals are no longer eaten around the family table, but at day care, where parents may have little control over what toddlers are eating.

Kids in full-time day care can get two-thirds of their daily calories there, “so it’s really other adults who are driving the nutritional value of what children consume,” says study researcher Sara Benjamin Neelon, PhD. She's an assistant professor in the department of community and family medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

In a new study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Benjamin Neelon and her colleagues reviewed 42 studies of obesity prevention related practices in day care.

They found that most states have minimal requirements for healthy eating and physical activity in child care that may differ from public health expert recommendations. Experts who were not involved in the research praised its scope and said that while it points to substantial problems, it also suggests that day care can be an important place to make lasting changes in a child’s life.

Starting Young

“In general, there’s been an increasing awareness that we have to start tackling obesity very early in a child’s life,” says Alice Ammerman, DrPH, a nutrition professor and director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I think things are moving in the right direction, but I think there’s a lot of potential for greater improvement,” particularly through day care, Ammerman says.

Communications tips from Prevention Institute - share your prevention work!

With August Recess winding down, we want to make sure that our legislators continue to hear about the good prevention work our communities are accomplishing. It is up to all of us to speak up and make sure that we are actively shaping the dialogue around community prevention, so that the media and our legislators can understand what we already know: prevention works.

Here is just a sampling of the media coverage our community has accomplished so far during the recess:

• In an op-ed in the Wisconsin State Journal, "Getting kids to eat their vegetables," health educator Maggie Smith captures her community’s resolve to develop local solutions to better the health of their children: “The success that La Crosse County and others implementing Farm to School programs are enjoying could never happen without the commitment, dedication and contributions from the wider community.”
  


• In the Portland Tribune,"We all have a stake in fighting obesity," public health officer Dr. Gary Oxman pens an op-ed effectively responding to a piece that ignored the environment’s role in shaping our health: “…obesity didn’t just 'hit' our community. It took decades of complex and often subtle shifts in what children eat and how much they move.”
  


• In a Miami Herald feature, “Miami-Dade initiatives target childhood obesity,” Penny Parham, Miami-Dade Public Schools’ food and nutrition director, deftly cues the environment first when describing her program’s goals: “We need to give our kids the best foods from which to select and then teach them to want to make the right selections.”



• “New options in store at two tienditas” in the San Antonio-Express News highlights why changing the environment in San Antonio is crucial to changing behaviors and ultimately health outcomes: “People buy what's available. It's easier to walk across the corner to pick up (whole) milk instead of taking two buses in 100-degree weather to buy skim at H-E-B.”

It’s not too late to broadcast your community’s successes, too. Here are the core messages we need to share with legislators and media alike:

• Community prevention is evidence-based.



• Community prevention is local.



• Prevention is good for business.



• Government has a role in public health.



• The American people want prevention.

We’ve compiled all of our media advocacy resources, including talking points, sample op-eds, and messaging and framing strategies in one easy-to-use Media Advocacy Toolkit for your review.

What you can do

• Send a letter to a Member of Congress to educate your legislator about the importance and value of community prevention. Prevention Institute provides easy-to-use, tailored e-mails that you can send directly to your legislator.
  


• Write an op-ed, blog post, or letter to the editor of your local paper.



• Issue a press release highlighting the work taking place in your community.

From Prevention Institute.

Keeping "First Food" part of the conversation.

“First Food” is Real Food Justice on Civil Eats

I’ve got a problem with the food system conversation in the U.S. It neglects to include what I call the “first food”—breast milk—and emphasize the critical importance of breastfeeding. No conversation about equitable food systems can truly exist without including the first food and understanding how the racial and social inequities around breastfeeding adversely affect vulnerable populations.

If access to healthy food is a basic human right then doesn’t that right start at birth? Shouldn’t our smallest and most vulnerable citizens have fair and just access to the healthiest food for them?

Read more...

What in health is going on here?

We need stronger connections between public education and public health. We need to recreate public schools as healthy learning environments, so that wherever students go -- classrooms, gardens, cafeterias, field trips, after-school activities, student clubs -- and whatever activities they are engaged in, they receive a consistent message about health:

"Your school cares about your health and wellbeing. Your school practices what it teaches..."



Source: What in Health is Going on Here? by Ann Evans for the Center for Ecoliteracy

Ethical Issues in Interventions for Childhood Obesity

• Protecting Children From Harmful Food Marketing: Options for Local Government to Make a Difference
  Jennifer L. Harris, Samantha K. Graff
  


• Childhood Obesity: A Framework for Policy Approaches and Ethical Considerations
  Rogan Kersh, Donna F. Stroup, Wendell C. Taylor
  


• Childhood Obesity: Issues of Weight Bias
  Reginald L. Washington
  


• Children With Special Health Care Needs: Acknowledging the Dilemma of Difference in Policy Responses to Obesity
  Paula M. Minihan, Aviva Must, Betsy Anderson, Barbara Popper, Beth Dworetzky
  


• Public Policy Versus Individual Rights in Childhood Obesity Interventions: Perspectives From the Arkansas Experience With Act 1220 of 2003
  Martha M. Phillips, Kevin Ryan, James M. Raczynski
  


• A Question of Competing Rights, Priorities, and Principles: A Postscript to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Symposium on the Ethics of Childhood Obesity Policy
  Shiriki K. Kumanyika
  


• The Ethical Basis for Promoting Nutritional Health in Public Schools in the United States
  Patricia B. Crawford, Wendi Gosliner, Harvey Kayman
  


• Ethical Family Interventions for Childhood Obesity
  Mandy L. Perryman
  


• Public Policy Versus Individual Rights and Responsibility: An Economist’s Perspective
  Frank J. Chaloupka
  


• State Requirements and Recommendations for School-Based Screenings for Body Mass Index or Body Composition, 2010
  Jennifer Linchey, Kristine A. Madsen
  


• Ethical Concerns Regarding Interventions to Prevent and Control Childhood Obesity
  John Govea

Via Marion Nestle's Food Politics blog.

Fall webinar series.

We are happy to announce our Fall 2011 webinar series:

Empowering Coalitions for Community Change

See the flier (click to enlarge) for session titles, dates and presenters. All webinars will be broadcast live at 1:00 pm CST. Links for individual webinars will be shared before each event.

This series is being made available to a national audience – please feel free to share this info with any prevention partners who may be interested.










Thanks to the Wisconsin Coalition Support Workgroup and all of the presenters listed for their contributions to this series.

Prevention Institute: Safe Places to Play and Be Active

All communities should have access to safe places to play and be physically active. The evidence is clear: regular physical activity is critical for healthy mental and physical development, chronic disease prevention, and reducing healthcare costs. Our ability to be active is determined, in large part, by the places in which we live, learn, work, and play. In both rural and urban areas, essential ingredients for physical activity include: safe, well-maintained paths and sidewalks; clean, well-lit parks; accessible school playgrounds; affordable public transit; quality physical education and places to which people can safely walk, roll, and bike.

“Safe Places to Play and Be Active,” a declaration developed by the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments and the Joint Use Statewide Taskforce to demonstrate a shared vision for equitable and accessible physical activity opportunities for all, provides recommendations across sectors to improve activity environments and provide safe places to play for communities.



Download here: Safe Places to Play and Be Active

Active Schools Toolkit Updated

Download the Active Schools Toolkit

The Department of Public Instruction has updated the Active Schools toolkit. (You can find it here.)

Kids spend most of their day in school. The Active Schools Toolkit can help schools create environments that support increased activity, to ensure our children’s future is healthy. 


An active school has many benefits! 
Active Schools = Academic Success

• Higher physical fitness test achievement is related to:
• Higher state academic test scores
• Higher attendance and fewer behavioral problems
• Physical activity can help youth improve their concentration, memory, and classroom behavior.

Children who are regularly active:

• Are more like to maintain a healthy weight
• Are less likely to develop illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, cancers and other chronic diseases
• Have higher self‐esteem 

Physical activity and health eating standards for afterschool programs

First-ever national healthy eating and physical activity standards developed for afterschool programs

"Energy balance and appropriate physical activity are critical to good health and preventing childhood obesity, which is reaching record numbers in this country. Out-of-school programs provide opportunities for children to not only consume nutritious snacks but also to learn real-life strategies for evaluating food options and making healthy choices," says project co-leader Ellen S. Gannett, director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time. "If out-of-school programs can influence smart choices for children when they're away from home and out of the classroom, they will be an important component in the campaign to fight childhood obesity."

Among the recommended standards outlined for out-of-school programs – which include before and after school programs, day camps, and overnight camps – are:

• Serving fruits and vegetables (fresh, frozen or canned) as options instead of cake, cookies, candy and chips


• Offering water as the preferred drink option during snack times instead of juices, punch boxes or soda


• Dedicating at least 20 percent or at least 30 minutes of morning or afterschool program time to physical activity (60 minutes for a full day program)


• Ensuring that daily physical activity time includes aerobic and age-appropriate muscle and bone strengthening and cardio-respiratory fitness activities

In addition, the new standards elevate the importance of training out-of-school program staff on the role of healthy eating, physical activity and social supports for healthy behavior.

Childhood obesity news digest

The High Cost of Healthy Eating out of Reach for Many
Associated Press
August 4, 2011
A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published Thursday that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.

Battling Childhood Obesity Should Pay Dividends (Editorial)
Athens Banner-Herald
July 22, 2011
While there may be some reason to be concerned about the new fitness initiative… there's a compelling reason for focusing on students' physical health in that it can affect their academic performance. In this time of accountability-based public education, where students' performances on standardized tests are key data, it would behoove state officials -- most especially including those Georgia legislators who express consistent concern about the performance of public schools -- to pursue any strategy that could boost student test scores.

Rural Areas' Lack of Sidewalks Fueling Obesity Problems
Daniela Velazquez for The Tampa Tribune
August 4, 2011
An emerging public health perspective links the ability of residents to easily walk or bike to a person's risk of becoming obese. And in Hillsborough County, as in many parts of the country, the streets in rural areas often don't have sidewalks or places where people can walk, jog or ride their bikes.

Researchers Study Kids at Play in Battle Against Obesity
Pam Adams for The Peoria Journal Star
August 3, 2011
[Researcher Lynn] Barnett-Morris’ subject is not child’s play. It’s how children’s playgrounds can be redesigned to promote physical activity and cooperation. Put another way, she’s looking at playground design as one part of the solution to childhood obesity and bullying, two hot-button issues she’s managed to merge with the social functions of swings and sliding boards.