• • e o e l o t e o , o * o l o * o , e e D o o e o e e e e e e e e e e e e e o e t l o * e * o , o o o l e e o e e o e e o o e e e , • e e , e e e e e e e e l l e l e e eeo o o e o e e e • a e l a l o • •

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS: NUTRITION THROUGHOUT THE LIFE CYCLE--CHILDREN TITLE: DO CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND CURRENT WEIGHT

INFLUENCE CHILD CARE PROVIDERS' FEEDING PRACTICES?

AUTHOR: MJ Sigman-Grant, Ph.D., R.D., University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, Southern Area, Las Vegas, NV

LEARNING OUTCOME: To increase awareness of potential impact of childhood experiences and current weight status on feeding practices of child care providers.

ABSTRACT TEXT:

Personal weight concerns along with how they were fed as children appear to affect how parents feed their own children. However, parents are not the only ones influencing children. Since millions of young children eat at least one meal per day in a group setting, child care providers also may impact them. This pilot study explored issues of providers' early feeding experiences. Six focus groups were conducted with 33 home care and 13 center personnel. Most of the 47 providers revealed their childhood eating experiences included as being required to clean their plate (74%); using dessert as a reward for eating (49%); etc. While acknowledging these as non-supportive, providers in-depth responses indicated they do not always practice what they know to be appropriate. Most felt that using food as a reward is acceptable as it teaches children responsibility and gives direction and motivation. Some suggested that when children overeat, they need adult intervention and monitoring going directly against recommendations that all children be allowed to self-determine the amount of food eaten.

An emerging issue is the potential relationship between providers' personal issues with weight and how they feed children in their care. Over one-half (51%) of providers reported being overweight. This was substantiated when body mass index (BMI) was calculated from self-reported weights and heights. The mean BMI was 26.8 (26.1 for home care, 27.4 for center), with 57% being overweight (BMI>25) and 26% obese (BMI>30). Of critical importance were providers' beliefs that their own weight issues stemmed from how they were fed as children. This finding raises questions about how providers' personal weight concerns and childhood experiences actually affect current feeding practices within child care settings. This issue needs further in-depth exploration.

TITLE: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF CHILDREN'S FOOD PREFERENCES

AUTHOR(S): Jean D. Skinner, PhD, RD, Betty Ruth Carruth, PhD, RD, Wendy Bounds, MS, RD, Paula Ziegler, PhD, RD, University of Tennessee and Gerber/Novartis

LEARNING OUTCOME: To describe children's food preferences between ages 2.9 and 8.0 years.

ABSTRACT TEXT: Little is known about how children's food preferences change as they grow older. Mothers (n=70 mother/child pairs) gave 3 reports of their child's preferences for 196 foods which are common in the US food supply (ie, those monitored for contaminants). Children's ages at T t were 2.9, T 2 4.0 and T 3 8.0 years. Mothers responded in 6 categories for each food: never offered to child, offered but not tasted, liked and eaten, liked but not eaten, disliked but eaten, and disliked and not eaten. Because of low responses in some categories, responses were collapsed into 3 categories: liked, disliked, and never offered/ never tasted. Means -k standard deviations and frequencies were calculated. Preferences over time were tested with Pearson correlation coefficients. Results showed that at each time the mean number of liked foods greatly exceeded those disliked; 118.3:t:27.1 (Tl) , 123.8±26.0 (T2), and 125.34-28.2 (I"3) of the 196 foods were liked, while 22.5±17.8 (T~), 24.44-16.7 (T2), and 33.34-17.8 (T3) foods were disliked. The mean number of never offered/never tasted foods decreased slightly over time, 47.14-19.0 (T~), 39.64-16.8 (T2), and 30.04-15.5 (T3) foods. Only at T 3 did the number of disliked foods outnumber the never offered/never tasted foods. Results indicated that foods liked at T2 and T3 were significantly correlated with those liked at T~, r=0.86, p<.0001(Tz) and r=0.79, p<.0001(T3). Correlations were similar for foods disliked at Tl, r=0.51, p<.0001 (T2) and r=0.46, p<.0001(T3). The significant correlations among time periods blur some changes over time, such as increased preferences for meats and raw vegetables and increased dislike for some vegetables (tomatoes-all forms, cabbage, asparagus, mushrooms, squash). We conclude that children's food preferences are stable for many foods, although some changes occur with age.

TITLE: EVALUATING FEEDING COMPETENCE OF CAREGIVERS AND TODDLERS

AUTHOR(S): SL Hoerr ~ RD, PhD, MA Omar PhD, RN, Gayle Coleman 3 MS, RD, Anna deAraujo I, Yea-lin Lin 2 IDept Human Nutr, 2College of Nursing, 3MSU Extension, Michigan State University, E Lansing, MI 48824

LEARNING OUTCOME: To identify useful questions to ask care givers in evaluation of their competence for feeding their toddlers.

ABSTRACT TEXT: Mothers and toddlers (n=38) in Early Head Start

were recruited for a newly developed Nutrition Education Aimed at Toddlers (NEAT). To capture both parent and child mealtime responsibilities, nine attitude items (Likert response from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree) and 11 behavior items (responses from Never to Always) were pilot tested. Factor analysis of items resulted in two behavior and three attitude constructs with loadings >0.60. The first behavioral construct Child Decides Amount included "How often does your child decide how much to eat at meals?" and "How often does your child decide if he/she is hungry at meals?" with an internal consistency r = 0.74, Cronbach's alpha. Behavioral Construct 2, Child Tasting Foods included "How often do you have your child taste everything on the plate?" and "How often do you encourage your child to try all foods?" (r= 0.83). The first attitude construct Importance of Clean Plate included "It is important for my child to clean his/her plate" and "I like to see my child eat everything at meals" with an alpha r=0.72. The second attitude construct Importance of tasting fruits, vegetables and milk (F/V/M) included 3 items formatted, "It is important for my child to taste F/V/M every day" with r=0.60. The attitude construct Offering New Foods, important for child feeding, included "When my child refuses a new food, I don't offer it again" and "It is important to offer a new food many time" had a low reliability = 0.35 and thus needs editing and retesting. In sum, we offer to dietitians these preliminary findings on five child feeding constructs to assess care givers' feeding attitudes and behaviors of their toddlers. These items have low respondent burden, important in clinical settings.

TITLE: FIVE-A-DAY SCHOOL CHALLENGE FOR FIRST GRADERS AUTHORS: N.A.B. Dickey, RD, s t uden t ; U.B. Krinke, PhD, MPH, RD; M.M. Reicks, PhD, RD, LD; M.M. Welk, s t ud en t ; Univers i ty of Minneso ta , J .M. Bullet , MS, RE), LN, B looming ton Publ ic Hea l th Division; N.E. Rokke, B looming ton School District , MN. LIgARHING OOTCOIt~$- To eva lua t e a m o n t h - l o n g nu t r i t i on p r o g r a m to e n c o u r a g e ch i ld ren a n d the i r fami l ies to t a s t e a n d c o n s u m e m o r e f ru i t s a n d vegetables . ABSTRACT TF.,XT: Chi ld ren of ten do n o t c o n s u m e th e r e c o m m e n d e d a m o u n t of f ru i t a n d vege tab les daily. Hea l th p r o m o t i n g ea t ing h a b i t s c a n r educe t he r i sk of c a n c e r a n d o ther s e r i o u s d i s ea se s . A pub l ic h e a l t h diet i t ian, school a n d food service staff, a local p r o d u c e c o m p a n y a n d a s en io r ci t izen cen te r worked toge ther to de s ign a n d i m p l e m e n t a 5-A-Day p r o g r a m wi th f u n d i n g f rom a local founda t ion . C la s s - a n d l u n c h r o o m t a s t i n g activit ies, innovat ive c l a s s r o o m props , u n i q u e a n d en g ag in g take- h o m e fami ly c o m p o n e n t s , a n d l e s s o n p l a n s wi th h a n d s - o n act ivi t ies were in tegra ted a c r o s s t he f i rs t g rade c u r r i c u l u m . The p r o g r a m w a s i m p l e m e n t e d in 15 t'n-st g rade c l a s s e s (318 children) d u r i n g a m o n t h - l o n g nu t r i t i on c a m p a i g n . Pre- a n d p o s t - p r o g r a m s u r v e y s s h o w e d i m p r o v e m e n t in s t u d e n t knowledge of t h e S-A- Day p r o g r a m (p<0.05) a n d s t u d e n t s t a s t e d a n ave rage of s ev en f ru i t s a n d vege tab les d u r i n g t he t a s t i ng activit ies. Pre- a n d pos t - p a r e n t a l s u r v e y s showed t h a t p a r e n t s repor ted a n i n c r e a s e d f rui t c o n s u m p t i o n by ch i ld ren (p<0.05) a n d t h a t ch i ld ren t a lked a b o u t the i m p o r t a n c e of t he S-A-Day p r o g r a m wi th the i r fami l ies (p<0.05). More p a r e n t s felt the i r chi ld s h o u l d h a v e 5 or m o r e se rv ings of f rui t a n d vege tab les pe r day (p<0.05) a n d m o r e famil ies repor ted t h a t t hey were p l a n n i n g to or a l r eady ea t ing m o r e f ru i t s a n d vege tab les {p<0.05) af ter par t i c ipa t ion in the p rogram. Teache r a n d Food Service p e r s o n n e l f o u n d t h i s p r o g r a m e a s y to admin i s t e r , low cost , flexible a n d were very will ing to repea t t he p r o g r a m again . CONFLICT OF INTEREffr: None

A-44 / Sep tember 2001 Supp lemen t Volume 101 Number 9