Eastern North Carolina Head Start Teachers’ personal and professional experiences with healthy eating and physical activity: a qualitative exploration

Abstract

Objective: Explore the interrelationship between teachers’ personal and professional socio-ecological structures while examining Head Start (HS) teachers’ experiences with (1) trying to eat healthy and engage in physical activity (PA) and (2) promote healthy eating and PA in their classrooms. Design: In-depth semi-structured interviews were collected from March through June 2017. Researchers designed the data collection and analysis methods using a phenomenological approach. All interviews were recorded using digital audio and transcribed verbatim. Setting: Seven HS centres in two rural eastern North Carolina counties. Participants: Teachers (n 15) who had recently participated in a healthy eating and physical activity intervention. Participants were 100 % female, an average age of 43 years (sd 9·6) and primarily Black/African American (93·3 %). Results: Eighteen primary themes were identified providing unique insight into individual, social and environmental determinants that may influence teachers’ personal health behaviours and professional health promotion practices. Findings indicated that teachers want to improve health behaviours personally (individual/family health) and professionally (children/families served); however, barriers exist at all levels impacting their ability to improve their own health and facilitate positive behaviours among the children/families they serve. Many teachers observed connections between their personal and professional experiences, but not beyond the individual level. Conclusions: Study findings highlight the importance of considering and emphasising the potential relationship between personal and professional determinants of health when working with early childhood teachers. Findings from this study may be useful for informing the development, implementation and evaluation of future health promotion interventions using teachers as implementers.

Is nutritional education in primary schools needed in the light of teachers’ diagnosis of the state of knowledge about food and nutrition of 7–12-year-old primary school pupils? The Focus Group Interview (FGI) – Junior-Edu-Żywienie (JEŻ) Project

“…In achieving the power of teachers to change the eating behaviour of pupils, consistent actions addressed to them are needed, supporting them with educational tools, as well as promoting effective educational methods, including pointing out the role of practical activities in modelling proper eating behaviour of pupils. Thus, if teachers are to provide highquality activities that promote healthy lifestyles and are to be persuasive role models, they need more support and adequate training in nutrition knowledge and practical classroom techniques [4,12,35]. Pupils spend a lot of time in school, therefore they are ideal places to implement comprehensive nutrition interventions because of their ability to promote healthy behaviours at the population level, reaching them from diverse backgrounds and family members.…”

“…School is a unique environment learning and personal development are key objectives of daily activities. It provides an excellent environment for nurturing and reinforcing healthy behaviours in order to cultivate a health-oriented lifestyle from early childhood through adulthood and into later adulthood [8,12,35]. Indeed, research indicates that healthy eating habits in childhood are crucial for proper physical and mental development, help prevent malnutrition, and in the long term, lower the risk of developing diet-related diseases [3].…”

“…Educators advocate the development of integrated programmes between the ministries of education, health, teachers, children and parents to ensure that nutrition education is comprehensive and reinforced in different settings, as other authors also point out [12,21,25,35]. Of course, the influence of the main educational environments, namely the family and the school, will be all the more effective the more consistent the content conveyed by these institutions.…”

“…This is especially important if it concerns such important issues as topics related to the impact of children's and adolescents' lifestyles on their development, functioning at school and health -now and in the future in adult life. Hence, the data thus obtained through loose statements and discussions during the FGIs can be helpful for creating guidelines/recommendations for schools in terms of the pro-health education provided [17,35], as well as creating new curricula and modifying existing core curricula. programme is essential to encourage behaviours aimed at transforming the lifestyles of pupils and their families.…”

Racial Disparities Among the Physical and Mental Health of Head Start Staff

“…HS was established in 1965 to promote school readiness in children from low-income families (Bergeron, 2020). As of 2020, HS's 10.6 billion dollar budget provided educational, nutritional, and social services to one million children preschool-aged children (3-5 years of age) and their families who live in underserved communities across the United States (Stage, et al, 2020;Bergeron, 2020). Nationwide, HS employs around 1, 436, 008 teachers; the vast majority are women (Bergeron, 2020).…”