INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF NUTRITION EDUCATION ON THE LIFESTYLES OF THIRD-GRADE CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS

Abstract

AbstractThe current study assessed improvement in healthy lifestyles of third-grade children from Iowa schools who participated in nutrition education lessons provided by the Iowa Department of Public Health's Building and Strengthening Iowa Community Support for Nutrition and Physical Activity (BASICS) program in 2009. The program encourages children to eat more fruits and vegetables as snacks and to be active every day. Autoregressive models and logistic regression analysis results showed that the BASICS program improved awareness of the Pick a better snack(TM) & Act campaign among children and their parents. The program also led to children's increased preferences toward fruits, vegetables, and low-fat milk products, and to parents' increased willingness to offer healthy foods to their children. The program stimulated children's desires to be physically active and parents' attentiveness toward children's physical activity. These results indicated that the children influenced their parents' recognition of campaign materials and how often their parents provided them with fruits and vegetables. Increasing parent age negatively influenced the probability of children receiving free and reduced-price lunch, reflecting the better economic situation of families with older parents.IntroductionObesity, one of the most important contemporary health problems, is spreading throughout developed countries. This problem relates to habits of consumption and physical activity in an environment that contains abundant amounts of food. Ease of food accessibility in more developed countries has increased cases of overconsumption resulting in obesity, which negatively affects health. Consequently, many public health organizations have committed funding and governmental to support efforts to combat this problem. Overweight and obese children draw special attention from healthcare and governmental organizations. Numerous factors lead to children becoming overweight or obese. These factors include an abundance of high-calorie foods that children like to eat, as well as the ready availability of television, videos, and computer games, which can lead to a sedentary lifestyle and insufficient physical activity. According to the Academy of Pediatrics, American children and adolescents today are less physically active as a group than were previous generations (2003:424). Children from low-income families and minority groups are especially vulnerable to becoming overweight and obese (Caprio et al. 2008; Eagle et al. 2012). These results indicate the necessity of developing and campaigns that will help reduce the number of children who are overweight or obese. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supports the development of school to promote physical activity and healthy eating. Veugelers and Fitzgerald (2005:432) emphasized that it is crucial to establish the effectiveness of school programs to support broader implementation of healthy lifestyles.The Iowa Department of Public Health has a goal to improve the health of children through the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle is beneficial for all children and helps children with obesity and overweight problems reduce their weight. The Iowa Nutrition Network, housed in the Department of Public Health, coordinates the Building and Strengthening Iowa Community Support for Nutrition and Physical Activity Program (BASICS), which uses a social marketing model to encourage and empower children, parents, and caregivers to eat healthily and be physically active. The BASICS program provides federal funding for community coalitions to expand nutrition and physical activity education serving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients and SNAP-eligible populations. The goal of the program is to provide educational that increase opportunities for low-income audiences to make healthy food choices consistent with the dietary advice of MyPyramid (www. …