Background: Improving the diet of preschool-aged children is an important public health goal. Preschool educators may be agents of change for improving children's diets. The objective of this pilot project was to evaluate the feasibility of a research partnership in which teachers collaborated with nutrition researchers to design a research project to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in preschool children. Methods: Researchers collected data on teachers' perceptions of preschool nutrition through interviews, focus groups, and observations. Teachers and researchers discussed principles of research and identified research questions related to classroom feeding practices. The feasibility of the research partnership was tested by collaborating to design experiments to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in children and examining aspects of the research partnership that facilitated and hindered the fulfillment of the teachers' research goals. Results: Teachers in child care centers feel responsible for promoting healthy eating for young children. Preschool teachers also tended to view nutrition as more important than obesity among young children. Teachers designed small quasi-experimental studies to test a vegetable promotion strategy. They were engaged in research and the research-teacher partnership, but were uncomfortable with the use of a control group, making formal evaluation of their quasi-experiments difficult. Conclusions: Preschool teachers can be agents of change for improving young children's nutrition. Engaging teachers through teacher-driven research projects may hold promise. Future collaborations should carefully consider preschool teachers' possible discomfort with disrupting children's routines.
展开▼
