About three-quarters of US children aged 3-6 are cared for by someone other than a parent, and half attend center-based child care. Given rising childhood obesity rates, healthy nutrition and physical activity policies in child care centers may help play a role in childhood obesity prevention. A recent DACP Obesity Prevention Program study found that most states in the US do not have adequate nutrition and physical activity regulations to help prevent obesity in children in child care facilities.
The study, published in Biomed Central Public Health and led by DACP fellow Sara Benjamin, was the first nationwide review of nutrition and physical activity standards in child care facilities.
Each state and the District of Columbia writes its own set of regulations for child care facilities, so there is considerable variation among states. The study team conducted a 50-state review of regulations for both child care centers and family child care homes. They examined the following eight regulations related to childhood obesity prevention (1) water is freely available to children; (2) sugar sweetened beverages are limited; (3) foods of low nutritional value are limited; (4) children are not forced to eat; (5) food is not used as a reward; (6) support is provided for breastfeeding and provision of breast milk; (7) TV time is limited; (8) physical activity is required daily.
Many states don’t include these standards as part of their policies and no state has enacted all the policies. For example, Tennessee had six of the eight obesity regulations for child care centers, and Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, and Nevada had five of the eight regulations. The District of Columbia, Idaho, Nebraska and Washington had none of the eight. For family child care homes, Georgia and Nevada had five of the eight regulations; Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia had four of the eight regulations; and California, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska did not have any of the regulations for family child care homes. Massachusetts had two of the regulations for child care centers and three for family child care settings.
“Most states have considerable room for improvement in their regulations relating to the feeding of children and their level of physical activity in child care facilities,” said lead investigator Sara Benjamin, PhD. “This study is an important first step toward persuading states to enhance and enforce these policies, which could contribute to reduced rates of obesity in young children.”
|
