Promoting healthy eating, active play and sustainability consciousness in early childhood curricula, addressing the Ben10™ problem: a randomised control trial

Abstract

BackgroundThis paper details the research protocol for a study funded by the Australian Research Council. An integrated approach towards helping young children respond to the significant pressures of ‘360 degree marketing’ on their food choices, levels of active play, and sustainability consciousness via the early childhood curriculum is lacking. The overall goal of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of curriculum interventions that educators design when using a pedagogical communication strategy on children’s knowledge about healthy eating, active play and the sustainability consequences of their toy food and toy selections.Methods/DesignThis cluster-randomised trial will be conducted with 300, 4 to 5 year-old children attending pre-school. Early childhood educators will develop a curriculum intervention using a pedagogical communication strategy that integrates content knowledge about healthy eating, active play and sustainability consciousness and deliver this to their pre-school class. Children will be interviewed about their knowledge of healthy eating, active play and the sustainability consequences of their food and toy selections. Parents will complete an Eating and Physical Activity Questionnaire rating their children’s food preferences, digital media viewing and physical activity habits. All measures will be administered at baseline, the end of the intervention and 6 months post intervention. Informed consent will be obtained from all parents and the pre-school classes will be allocated randomly to the intervention or wait-list control group.DiscussionThis study is the first to utilise an integrated pedagogical communication strategy developed specifically for early childhood educators focusing on children’s healthy eating, active play, and sustainability consciousness. The significance of the early childhood period, for young children’s learning about healthy eating, active play and sustainability, is now unquestioned. The specific teaching and learning practices used by early childhood educators, as part of the intervention program, will incorporate a sociocultural perspective on learning; this perspective emphasises building on the play interests of children, that are experienced within the family and home context, as a basis for curriculum provision.Trial RegistrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12614000363684: Date registered: 07/04/2014

What’s in Your Refrigerator? Children’s Views on Equality, Work, Money and Access to Food

“…This projection of poverty elsewhere was noted despite the relative poverty of many of the children participating in the discussion (by Australian standards). Children discussed many broad social issues as a result of this conversation about fridges, drawing on their home and community experiences (Skouteris, Edwards, Rutherford, Cutter-MacKenzie, Huang & O'Connor, 2014) and funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll & Armanti, 2005), offering solutions and explanations and advancing stereotypes they revealed:…”

“…Using children's 'funds of knowledge' encourages them to engage in more critical perspectives about issues relating to sustainability issues as they provide a familiar context and is broader than just the school environment. Broader perspectives and diverse points of view are likely to be accessed when learning experiences are derived from children's home and community experiences (Skouteris, Edwards, Rutherford, Cutter-MacKenzie, Huang & O'Connor, 2014).…”

Rationale, Design and Methods Protocol for Participatory Design of an Online Tool to Support Industry Service Provision Regarding Digital Technology Use ‘with, by and for’ Young Children

“…Discovering: Identified actions/interactions from the earlier Exploring phase are trialled by the participants according to the nominated procedure for their investigation (Table 1). These are implemented over a 12-week period [37] with trial experiences documented by industry partners, participants and researchers. Industry partner staff-members from each investigation maintain regular contact with participants by phone, email, and/or video-conferencing working alongside researchers.…”

“…The online tool is developed during two rounds of 'build, test, refine'. Data analytics using normalized frequency counts are applied to illustrate the strength of connection between nodes as the industry partners access the online tool during these rounds [37]. Strength of connection is visibly represented in the online tool as various degrees of line thickness between nodes (e.g., thicker lines indicating a stronger degree of connection).…”

Understanding Preschool Children’s Reported Knowledge of Food, Nutrition, and Health

“…Learning about and establishing healthy nutritional practices is important because food habits learned at an early age are more difficult to change at a later time [1,2]. Early childhood 1 professionals can use a variety of strategies to help young children establish healthy eating habits [3]; one of which is to utilize evidencebased nutrition education curricula for young children [4]. The goal of nutrition education for young children is to increase their understanding of the body's use of food, the nutritional value of foods and an overall diet, and the importance and function of good nutrition for growth and health [5].…”