Learning Objectives

After completion of this module students will be able to:

• Describe the ways in which child care settings can place children at risk for obesity.
• Discuss the links between family mealtime and obesity and healthy eating in children and adults.
• Explore strategies that parents can use to make the most of family mealtimes.

Key Concepts - Child Care Feeding Practices:

• Preschool age children spend up to 30 hours per week in out of home care and can consume significant amount of calories away from home. There are no federal regulations for child care providers regarding feeding practices or physical activity
• There are areas to improve child care providers as role models for healthy eating
• There are different types of child care settings (e.g., Head Start, Family Child Care, Child Care Centers), and guidelines for feeding practices and physical activity are limited for all of them
• Head Start is a model program for guidelines for food and physical activity
• One model to consider when developing programs or creating guidelines related to child care feeding is the day care trilemma: quality, accessibility, compensation

Key Concepts - Family Mealtimes and Nutrition

• There are a variety of myths and questions surrounding family mealtime frequencies and practices.
• Many believe that family meals are on the decline, but most families report regularly eating dinner together.
• There are cumulative effects of family meals on children’s nutritional health.
• A meta-analysis found that sharing family meals is related to reduced odds for overweight, eating unhealthy foods, eating disorders, and increased the odds for eating healthy foods.
• Some barriers to family mealtime include behavioral challenges, sibling arguments, scheduling problems, and unequal division of meal preparation roles.

Video Microlectures

• Video: Child Care Context and Childhood Obesity
  Dr. Brent A. McBride, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Video: Family Mealtimes and Childhood Obesity
  Dr. Barbara H. Fiese, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Optional Readings

• Dev, D. A., & McBride, B. A. (2013). Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics benchmarks for nutrition in child care 2011: are child-care providers across contexts meeting recommendations? Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113, 1346-1353.
• Hammons, A. J., & Fiese, B. H. (2011). Is frequency of shared family meals related to the nutritional health of children and adolescents? Pediatrics, 127, e1565-e1574.