Preschool Based Obesity Prevention Effectiveness Trial

The teacher-delivered weight control intervention (TD-WCI) is implemented over 14 weeks with three lessons per week. Many lessons include the use of colorful, friendly, hand-made puppets that represent the seven food groups of the food pyramid (Miss Grain, Miss Fruit, Mr. Vegetable, Mr. Protein, Miss Dairy, Mr. Fat and Miss Sugar). Please see Appendix IX for complete curriculum and pictures of puppets. There are three 40-minute lessons per week that consist of a 15-20 minutes interactive healthy eating and exercise didactic session and then 20 minutes of ongoing physical activity (5 minutes warm-up, 15 minutes aerobic activity composed of a number of games and dances with music, 5 minutes cool-down). In addition to the child-based curriculum the WCI has parent newsletters. These newsletters are distributed on a weekly basis and provide information that parallels the children's curriculum

The teacher-delivered general health intervention (TD-GHI) serves as the control group in the proposed study. TD-GHI is a general health intervention that is similar in structure and length to TD-WCI. Topics include those related to general health and safety, such as car safety, being a good friend, poison safety, disease prevention, etc. An example of an activity is the 911 emergency call. The children learn what 911 is and what would be an appropriate call. They then practice calling 911 on play telephones and relating the important information: nature of the emergency, their name, their address, etc. They learn also to stay on the phone with the 911 dispatcher until someone comes to help them. In addition to the child-based curriculum the GHI has parent newsletters. Like TD-WCI these newsletters are distributed on a weekly basis and provide information that parallels the children's curriculum