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Nutrition Education Aimed At Toddlers Project

Description:
This project is aimed at promoting toddler development and self-regulation by improving toddler feeding practices. Specifically, the project is designed to explore whether completing a feeding and nutrition education program: (1) improves parents' feeding attitudes, knowledge, confidence and behavior; (2) positively influences toddler food consumption; and (3) positively influences toddler growth and health. The focus of the Nutrition Education Aimed at Toddlers (NEAT) intervention will be to promote healthy eating behaviors and balance responsibility between Early Head Start (EHS) parents and their children during the eating process. This project will compare toddler feeding self-regulation behaviors and toddler-parent feeding interactions among families in the intervention group receiving the NEAT intervention and families in a control group. The NEAT intervention consists of two core components: (1) in-class structured lessons on child development, feeding, food, nutrition, mealtime, and parenting practices; and (2) in-home structured reinforcement in the same context. The first core component of the NEAT program consists of four weekly in-class lessons taught by trained paraprofessional nutrition instructors. The second core component consists of weekly home visits over a six month period by trained EHS home visitors. All families enrolled in five collaborating EHS programs with a toddler between the ages of 11 and 25 months will be recruited for participation. Researchers estimate that approximately 250 families will meet the inclusion criteria for the study, with approximately 100 intervention and 100 control families. Researchers hypothesize that toddler-feeding self-regulation will be more positive in the intervention group when compared to the control group at 4-week and 6-month post-intervention assessments. In addition, researchers believe that toddler-parent-feeding interactions will be more positive in the intervention group when compared with the control group at 4-week and 6-month post-intervention assessments.
Resource Type:
Administration for Children and Families/OPRE Projects
Principal Investigator(s):
Grantee(s)/Contrator(s):

Related resources include summaries, versions, measures (instruments), or other resources in which the current document plays a part. Research products funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation are related to their project records.

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