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Methods: A non-equivalent control group, pretest-posttest design will be used in this study. The independent variable will be a theory based and developmentally appropriate program. The dependent variables will be knowledge and performance related to dietary habits among the preschoolers’ parents and the teachers at the day care centers where the participants are enrolled, as well as the preschoolers themselves. The study participants will be preschoolers who are at the most important age of life for building lifelong dietary habits. The study will be approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the researchers’ university. The program will be developed based on the researchers’ prior experience and various methods will be used to develop the program and make it more responsive to the needs of parents and teachers as well as the needs of preschoolers. Further, the program will be developed considering Social Cognitive Theory with knowledge and performance related to dietary habits as the behavioral factors of the theory, and the preschoolers themselves as the personal factors of the theory. In addition, the homes and day care centers of the preschoolers as well as their parents and teachers will be considered as the environmental factors of the theory. The program will be conducted between February and May, 2015 in day care centers in Wonju, South Korea. The data will be analyzed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS). The equivalence between the intervention group and control group will be analyzed using Chi square test and t test. Comparisons of the dependent variables between the two groups after the program will be analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance or Mann-Whitney Utest.
Results: At follow-up, the program is expected to show significant effects on knowledge and performance related to dietary habits among parents and teachers of preschoolers as well as the preschoolers themselves.
Conclusion: It is expected that this program will be shown to have potential as a theory based and developmentally appropriate intervention to build the healthy dietary habits of preschoolers and confirm the necessity to focus on children at a much earlier age in order to build healthy dietary habits for their lifetime. The program will suggest the value of a theory based systematic nutritional program to build the healthy dietary habits of preschoolers and will confirm the significant relationship between theory and research in contributing to the advancement of nursing science.