Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Nutrition Education Competencies and a Competency-Based Resource Guide for Preschool-Aged Children

The objective of this dissertation was to develop and set of nutrition education competencies and a competency-based resource guide and to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of these on improving nutrition knowledge and nutrition-related behavior in preschool-aged children and improve nutrition knowledge in parents and preschool teachers.;Nutrition Competencies for California Children were published by the California Department of Education (CDE) in 2007; however they contained only minimal information for preschool-aged children. The competencies were recently expanded to seven competencies with benchmarks and expectations for this age group. The expansion and finalization of the Nutrition Competencies and competency-based resource guide entitled Connecting the Dots...Healthy Foods, Healthy Choices, Healthy Kids!! (CTD) followed a sequential review process. Upon completion of the sequential review process, the competencies and CTD were field tested in five California childcare centers and family childcare homes. The results from the field tests suggest that the competencies and CTD were useful resources for preschool teachers and childcare providers; a pilot study followed.;The objective of the pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the nutrition competencies and CTD materials at improving nutrition knowledge in children, parents, and teachers, and improving nutrition-related behavior in children utilizing the Social Cognitive Theory as a theoretical framework. An additional objective was to determine the feasibility of use by preschool teachers. There was also a sub-aim to evaluate to different implementation methodologies in the treatment sites: Treatment A had minimal assistance in implementation by University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) and Treatment had assistance in the implementation of CTD by UCCE staff. To assess knowledge in parents and teachers, a nutrition knowledge questionnaire was administered at baseline and follow-up. In order to assess nutrition knowledge in children, the adapted Preschool Health and Safety Knowledge Assessment was administered. To measure nutrition-related behavior, a plate-waste meal observation was conducted. Both of these assessments occurred at baseline and follow-up.;Results from the pilot study indicated that the children from Treatment B significantly improved their nutrition knowledge, had a significantly higher intake of whole grains, and tended to increase their intake of vegetables from baseline to follow-up as compared to Treatment A. Parents from Treatment B had significant improvement in nutrition knowledge from baseline to follow-up as compared to Treatment A. Future research efforts should be directed towards programs based upon current scientific recommendations and preschool guidelines with assistance from community-based programs such as UCCE.