Increasing Food Literacy in Preschoolers to Reduce Obesity Risk

The Healthy Eating (HE) curriculum is designed to provide children with skills needed to develop healthy eating habits. Each lesson builds upon the overall goal of creating a healthy restaurant. Children are taught to identify differences between GO and WHOA foods, recognize the five food groups, and learn to make healthy food choices.

"HBP+ Classrooms will receive additional sensory activities for each lesson (e.g., posters, food models, games) designed to improve the classroom food environment and provide repeated exposure to activities and messages about fruits and vegetables. Teachers in HBP+ classrooms will be provided with additional training on strategies shown to increase food acceptance in preschool children (e.g., modeling, encouraging children to try foods without coercion). In addition, HBP+ classrooms will include tasting charts that children will stamp to indicate their liking for each food each week."

Parents in intervention classrooms will be given access to 8 web-based lessons on food parenting and responsive parenting. Topics include: establishing mealtime routines, shopping healthy on a budget; modeling of healthy eating behaviors; addressing picky eating in children; structuring low-stress mealtime environments; the division of responsibility in feeding, and portion control.

HBP+ early childhood educators (ECEs) will be asked to complete an online, self-paced course on increasing food acceptance in preschool children. Topics will include: repeated exposure to foods; modeling of healthy eating behaviors; addressing picky eating in children; structuring low-stress mealtime environments; and the division of responsibility in feeding.