Paper
Saturday, 22 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Children and Adolescents with Healthcare Issues
Preschoolers at Risk: An Evidence-Based Obesity Prevention Program for Young Children and Their Parents
Leigh Small, PhD, RN, CPNP, Pediatrics, Arizona State University College of Nursing, Tempe, AZ, USA, Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/NPP, FAAN, College of Nursing, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, and Anne Strasser, RN, MS, PNP, Visiting Nurses Service, Rochester, NY, USA.
Learning Objective #1: discuss the three core components of this evidece-base intervention program conducted with young preschool children and their parents.
Learning Objective #2: identify ways to enhance an intervention program that are driven by data collected in a pilot trial.
 Type II Diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions in America’s children. This is a direct consequence of the overwhelming numbers of children who are overweight/obese. Currently, it is estimated that 26-30% of all American children have a BMI>85% and are overweight or at risk for overweight. Preschoolers (3-6 years) whose BMI%>85% have a greater than 40% chance of being obese at age 25. One researcher found 60-90% of overweight children (5–10 years) to have at least one biochemical or clinical risk factor (e.g., hypertension) marking the early development of cardiovascular disease, a co-morbidity of overweight/obesity. This information underscores the pressing need to test prevention intervention programs with young children
   The COPE/Healthy Children Program is a manualized, reproducible intervention developed from the best available evidence and has been recently pilot tested in two urban childcare centers (n=14). This unique program sought to strengthen parent/child knowledge; support positive intentions, attitudes, and beliefs; and provide examples of positive parenting and coping skills. Parent and child knowledge scores (i.e., healthy nutrition and activity) increased over the duration of the intervention period; however, the control group scores remained relatively unchanged. Additionally, the nutrition knowledge scores of the experimental mothers and their children were negatively correlated at baseline (r= -.18, p=.70) but became positively correlated over the course of the intervention program (r=.81, p=.03). Measures of parental beliefs and intentions to make healthy lifestyle decisions for their children also increased over time; however, parental intentions to make healthy lifestyle decisions for themselves showed little change. A major component of this prevention evidence-based intervention is the involvement of parents to model behavior for their young children; therefore, enhancement of the parent-directed portion of this intervention should improve knowledge and personal intention scores in future investigations while enhancing the parenting skills necessary to make healthy lifestyle behavior changes.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)