Developing Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors in Early Age—An Intervention Study in Kindergartens

Abstract

Childhood obesity prevention is a leading public health challenge requiring the adoption of healthy lifestyles at an early age. We examined how the kindergarten environment can promote eating sensibly, drinking water and becoming physically active. The effects of an intervention program among 42 Israeli kindergartens (1048 children, aged 4–6) whose teachers participated in a health education training program were compared to 32 kindergartens (842 children) whose teachers did not undergo this training program. An eight-month intervention program focused on knowledge/mathematical/logical/critical thinking, self-regulation/control acquisition, and sensible decision-making abilities. We hypothesized that nutrition and physical-exercise-oriented intervention programs, combining knowledge/mathematical logical thinking, would positively impact the quality of children’s mid-morning snack and water consumption, their ability to express feelings following physical exercise, and the adoption of healthy lifestyles at home. The quality of mid-morning snacks and water consumption were observed in both groups pre- and post-intervention. Qualitative interviews documented children’s subjective feelings following physical exercise. A significant improvement (p < 0.001) was observed in the mid-morning snacks composition and in water drinking habits in the intervention group; 80% of children offered a physiological explanation regarding energy expenditure processes following intense physical exercise. In conclusion, kindergarten interventions implemented by trained teachers can promote adoption of health behaviors necessary for obesity prevention.

Bibliometric Analysis of Studies Focusing on Critical Thinking in Early Childhood

“…Current studies in the international literature include the fields of information reliability of digital resources (Feijoo et al, 2023), academic performance in higher education (Lopez et al, 2023), art (Jiang & Alizadeh, 2023), teaching methods (Almulla, 2023;Ssemugenyi, 2023), and health (Taylor et al, 2023). Current literature in the field of early childhood focuses on what engineering practices experienced in early childhood teach children (Ramanathan et al, 2023), an intervention program to encourage children to adopt a healthy lifestyle (Jakobovich et al, 2023), cultural awareness (Adam & Byrne, 2023), play-based curriculum (Geletu, 2023), scientific thinking and scientific competencies (Carvajal-Sanchez et al, 2023;Su & Yang, 2023), STEM activities (Nikolopoulou, 2023), and independent learning behaviors (Özcan, 2022).…”