Page 6 - Demo

Executive Summary
Teaching young children healthy habits not only gives them a good start early in life, it also has the potential to reduce the individual and societal burden of health risks related to obesity later in life. Early childhood settings can thus be critical environments for intervention. The Choose Health LA Child Care (CHLA CC) program offers nutrition and physical activity training and one- on-one coaching to licensed center- and family child care providers, equipping providers with the knowledge, tools, and technical support to instill healthy habits in the children in their care.
To measure the impact of training and coaching with the participating child care providers, a Policies and Practices Self-Assessment Questionnaire was developed and mailed out to collect information at two points – at baseline to gain an understanding of providers’ policies and practices before participating in CHLA CC training and coaching, and at 6-months follow-up.
A total of 602 center- and home-based child care providers returned self-report baseline surveys (after training but before coaching) and follow-up surveys (after coaching, for those who received coaching). Most surveys (77.9%) were returned by center-based staff, and 22.1% of surveys were returned by licensed Family Child Care providers (FCC or Licensed Home providers). Most providers reported English as their primary language (73.4% English and 26.6% Spanish). Of those who attended the training and returned the survey, 55.0% (331) received at least an initial coaching session and 22.1% (133) received a second coaching session.
Nutrition: Feeding Practices. When reporting on their feeding practices, more family child care providers report serving meals and snacks than center-based staff, particularly morning snack and dinner. There were a number of areas that may have been impacted the most by the training and coaching intervention, resulting in statistically significant increases in programs engaging or making progress in these areas when comparing baseline to follow-up. These areas included:
 Parents receive written nutrition policies upon enrollment.
 Parents are given information about what their children are eating.
 Parents are given information about what their children are offered (menus).
 Children decide which foods they will eat from the foods offered.
 Foods that are served reflect the ethnicity and cultures of the children in the
center/home.
 Parents are provided information on child nutrition and healthy eating.
Improving Health in Child Care Settings: 2016 2