happy family, healthy kids program

Conditions: Healthy Diet; Stress; Pediatric Obesity; Intergenerational Relations

Summary: happy family, healthy kids program, funded by the michigan health endowment fund, is a 14-week healthy eating program aimed to foster "happy family \& healthy kids." the program will target parental emotional eating through a life stress management component, and parents will be coached on making happy and healthy eating behavioral changes at home that will support their children to establish lifelong healthy eating habits. at the end of this project, the investigators expect to have an effective, comprehensive, and sustainable healthy eating program ready to expand to any head start center in an urban or rural setting.

in project year 1, the program will be evaluated with about 100 head start children, aged 3 to 5 years, and their parents (one parent per family) in four urban and four rural head start centers. the investigators will compare the program outcomes between urban and rural settings. all involved head start centers will support msu staff to conduct data collection activities (e.g., online survey completed by parents; height, weight, and blood pressure measures; hair samples collected from both children and parents). msu staff, along with head start staff, will implement the 14-week healthy eating program activities including four components: 1. a 14-week parent facebook-based program focusing on stress management and healthy eating to reduce emotional eating and increase parents' capacity to initiate healthy eating practices at home 2. three parent face-to-face or virtual meetings at head start centers to connect parents with each other in person, offer healthy cooking tools/classes, and discuss behavioral change strategies and challenges 3. 14-week child "eat my abcs" program at head start centers to provide an age-appropriate, healthy eating program to children 4. weekly child letter to parents to connect child learning at the head start center with parental practices at home in project year 2, the investigators will finalize the program based on the evaluation outcomes in project year 1, and work closely with the participating head start organizations to disseminate the healthy eating program to all the participating head start centers and classes.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: there are ten inclusion criteria (five for preschoolers and five for caregivers). preschoolers must: 1. have parental consent. 2. have child assent if the child is 5 years old. 3. be 3-5 years of age. 4. be able to understand and speak english. the intervention will be delivered in english. 5. be enrolled in the full-day or part-day head start program. caregivers must: 1. provide consent. 2. be the primary adult caregiver (≥ 18 years old) for the preschooler. primary caregiver refers to the one person most responsible for providing care to the preschooler on a daily basis. 3. be able to read, understand, and speak english. the intervention will be delivered in english. 4. have at least weekly internet access using a smartphone, tablet, or a computer. each caregiver needs to have internet access to access the study's facebook group for participating in the facebook-based program. 5. be willing to use facebook. since the caregiver intervention component will be delivered via facebook, caregivers need to be willing to use facebook in the study. exclusion criteria: there are three exclusion criteria for both caregivers and preschoolers. 1. preschoolers or caregivers who have medical conditions precluding participating in dietary changes. 2. preschoolers or caregivers who have diagnosed health conditions known to impact weight (e.g., prader-willi syndrome) or are taking weight-affecting medications (e.g., stimulants). 3. preschoolers who have diagnosed developmental disabilities (e.g., autism), or caregivers who have diagnosed psychiatric or mental health problems.

Keywords: obesity prevention early childhood intergenerational healthy eating life stress management