Child care offers an ideal setting to promote more healthful eating through nutrition education. However, many child care providers lack knowledge about nutrition and receive infrequent nutrition training. Although web-based training shows promise as a way to address this, most current trainings focus on information provision rather than direct skills training that promotes hands-on, experiential learning. The present study describes the development of nutrition education videos using a participatory action research (PAR) approach that has been successful in generating research evidence to address community-based challenges. This approach involves four major phases: (1) external consumer influence, (2) consumer-empowered team, (3) the research process, and (4) provider-valued outcomes. A case report design is used to describe the development of six nutrition education videos for child care providers (e.g., teaching taste, texture, and color; teaching nutritional benefits; teaching portion size). One hundred and fourteen providers, parents, and public health professionals viewed the videos. Results showed that the vast majority found the videos to be helpful or very helpful for instructing adults to teach children about nutrition. The videos were made publically available on a website ( http://TeachKidsNutrition.org ), and as of 1 year of being posted, the website had more than 4,919 visitors across the United States and internationally. Lessons learned throughout this process are discussed. The development of these videos using PAR presents a promising approach to assure that child care providers receive hands-on, experiential learning in nutrition education. Furthermore, this approach may contribute to obesity prevention efforts among child care providers.
Implementing the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Benchmarks for Nutrition Education for Children: Child-Care Providers’ Perspectives