Overview
Feeding practices (how and when adults feed young children) impact the foods children eat as well as their lifelong food preferences and eating habits. Early care and education programs are an effective setting for obesity prevention, as children in preschool eat many of their meals while in non-parental care. The long-term goal of this postdoctoral fellowship project was to address early childhood obesity and enhance the nutrition and health of young children by improving feeding practices in early-care and education settings. Specifically, this project examined care providers’ knowledge, motivation, and behavioral skills concerning feeding practices to develop online extension materials that help child care providers use feeding practices that promote healthy eating habits. Additionally, this project included an educational component in which undergraduate students learned about and gained hands-on experience with research and extension programing related to childhood obesity prevention.
Research Team
- Katherine Speirs, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Assistant Specialist, Early Childhood/Childhood Development
- Barbara Fiese, Ph.D., Former Director, Family Resiliency Center Director, Human Development and Family Studies
Contact:
Katherine Speirs
520-621-1691
kspeirs@email.arizona.edu
Funding
This material is based on work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture.