A great way to bring up health behaviour topics at playgroup: a qualitative evaluation of the Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup program

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The early years is a critical stage to establish optimal nutrition and movement behaviours. Community playgroups are a relaxed environment for parents with a focus on social connection and supporting parents in their role as ‘First Teachers’. Playgroups are therefore an opportunistic setting to promote health behaviours in the early years. To support parents with young children around healthy lifestyle behaviours, the Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup program was delivered in urban and regional areas, across three Australian jurisdictions between 2021–2023.

Objective

This qualitative evaluation aimed to understand how the Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup program was experienced by parents, playgroup coordinators and peer facilitators.

Design

Semi-structured virtual interviews and focus groups were conducted with parents, playgroup coordinators (i.e., person responsible for coordinating the playgroup) and peer facilitators (i.e., trained facilitator for the program) that participated in the Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup study. Transcripts were analysed following a thematic analysis approach.

Results

Twenty-eight playgroup parents, coordinators or peer facilitators participated in one of 8 focus groups or 5 interviews. Four themes were developed: Program strengths and challenges; Setting strengths and challenges; Factors that impact program delivery; Participant’s suggestions for future program delivery.

Conclusions

The Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup program was valued by parents, providing validation and normalisation of parenting practices, and fostering a shared experience of parenting. Playgroups are a convenient setting for families to attend. The dynamic and distracting nature of the playgroup setting were carefully considered when designing the program. Strategies to further enhance program engagement could include use of coordinator or parent champions, tailored delivery, and extending the reach to other family members.

Trial registration

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12621000055808, registered 22 January 2021, https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=380890

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-024-17703-x.

Related collections

Most cited references 40

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide

Virginia Braun, Victoria Clarke (2022)

0 comments Cited 246 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Tracking of obesity-related behaviours from childhood to adulthood: A systematic review.

Angela Craigie, Amelia Lake, Sarah Kelly … (2011)

Obesity in childhood carries a wide range of physical, psychological and social disbenefits and also increases the risk of adult obesity with its well-recognised, enhanced risk of several common complex diseases as well as adverse socioeconomic and psychosocial sequelae. Understanding the tracking of the two key modifiable behaviours, food consumption and physical activity, between childhood and adulthood may illuminate the childhood determinants of adult obesity and contribute to the development of effective interventions. We performed a systematic review of the available literature on tracking of both physical activity and of dietary intake between childhood and adulthood by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PSYCInfo, Google and Google Scholar. For inclusion, studies had to report baseline measurements when the children were less than, or equal to, 18 years and to report follow-up for at least 5 years to any age over 18 years. After removal of duplicates, 9625 search hits were screened by title and/or abstract and 79 potentially relevant papers were identified and full papers obtained. In total 39 papers were included in this analysis. Of these, 11 papers (from 5 studies) reported data on tracking of diet from childhood to adulthood and 28 papers (from 16 studies) reported data on tracking of physical activity or inactivity. Despite the diversity of study design and measurement methodology, we found evidence of tracking of both physical activity and of diet between childhood and adulthood with estimates of strength of tracking of a similar order for both behaviours. Because of the inherent methodological difficulties in quantifying habitual behaviour, it is likely that the reported estimates of strength of tracking under-estimate the true degree of tracking. The evidence of tracking reported here may give greater impetus to the development of interventions aimed to prevent the persistence of obesity from childhood into adulthood and its attendant adverse socioeconomic, psychosocial and health sequelae. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

0 comments Cited 195 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents.

L Birch, J Fisher (1998)

The prevalence of obesity among children is high and is increasing. We know that obesity runs in families, with children of obese parents at greater risk of developing obesity than children of thin parents. Research on genetic factors in obesity has provided us with estimates of the proportion of the variance in a population accounted for by genetic factors. However, this research does not provide information regarding individual development. To design effective preventive interventions, research is needed to delineate how genetics and environmental factors interact in the etiology of childhood obesity. Addressing this question is especially challenging because parents provide both genes and environment for children. An enormous amount of learning about food and eating occurs during the transition from the exclusive milk diet of infancy to the omnivore's diet consumed by early childhood. This early learning is constrained by children's genetic predispositions, which include the unlearned preference for sweet tastes, salty tastes, and the rejection of sour and bitter tastes. Children also are predisposed to reject new foods and to learn associations between foods' flavors and the postingestive consequences of eating. Evidence suggests that children can respond to the energy density of the diet and that although intake at individual meals is erratic, 24-hour energy intake is relatively well regulated. There are individual differences in the regulation of energy intake as early as the preschool period. These individual differences in self-regulation are associated with differences in child-feeding practices and with children's adiposity. This suggests that child-feeding practices have the potential to affect children's energy balance via altering patterns of intake. Initial evidence indicates that imposition of stringent parental controls can potentiate preferences for high-fat, energy-dense foods, limit children's acceptance of a variety of foods, and disrupt children's regulation of energy intake by altering children's responsiveness to internal cues of hunger and satiety. This can occur when well-intended but concerned parents assume that children need help in determining what, when, and how much to eat and when parents impose child-feeding practices that provide children with few opportunities for self-control. Implications of these findings for preventive interventions are discussed.

0 comments Cited 160 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Brittany J. Johnson: brittany.johnson@flinders.edu.au

Rebecca K. Golley: rebecca.golley@flinders.edu.au

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Public Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Public Health

Title: BMC Public Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2458

Publication date (Electronic): 25 March 2024

Publication date PMC-release: 25 March 2024

Publication date Collection: 2024

Volume: 24

Electronic Location Identifier: 890

Affiliations

[1 ]Flinders University, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Caring Futures Institute, ( https://ror.org/01kpzv902) Adelaide, SA Australia

[2 ]School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland Australia, ( https://ror.org/00rqy9422) Brisbane, QLD Australia

[3 ]Faculty of Health, School of Exercise and Nutrition Science, Queensland University of Technology, ( https://ror.org/03pnv4752) Brisbane, QLD Australia

[4 ]GRID grid.1012.2, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7910, Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia, ; Perth, WA Australia

[5 ]School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, ( https://ror.org/047272k79) Perth, WA Australia

[6 ]Centre for Child and Family Studies, School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology, ( https://ror.org/03pnv4752) Brisbane, QLD Australia

[7 ]GRID grid.453171.5, ISNI 0000 0004 0380 0628, Health and Wellbeing Queensland, , Queensland Government, ; Brisbane, QLD Australia

Article

Publisher ID: 17703

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-17703-x

PMC ID: 10962158

PubMed ID: 38528500

SO-VID: 20377918-fdc7-4616-8abe-106590d4145c

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 5 October 2023

Date accepted : 8 January 2024

Funding

Funded by: The Hospital Research Foundation Group

Award ID: 2022-CF-EMCR-008-QA25323

Award Recipient : Brittany J. Johnson

Funded by: Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund

Award ID: 2019; GNT1200764

Award Recipient : Stewart G. Trost Rebecca Byrne Hayley E. Christian Kate E. Williams Rebecca K. Golley

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923, Australian Research Council;

Award ID: DE230101053

Award ID: CE200100025

Award Recipient : Rebecca Byrne Hayley E. Christian

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001030, National Heart Foundation of Australia;

Award ID: 102549

Award Recipient : Hayley E. Christian

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: early childhood,community,parenting,peer-led program,healthy eating,movement,sleep,screentime,playgroup

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Public health

Keywords: early childhood, community, parenting, peer-led program, healthy eating, movement, sleep, screentime, playgroup

A great way to bring up health behaviour topics at playgroup: a qualitative evaluation of the Healthy Conversations @ Playgroup program

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Objective

Design

Results

Conclusions

Trial registration

Supplementary Information

Related collections

PLOS Global Public Health

Most cited references 40

Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide

Tracking of obesity-related behaviours from childhood to adulthood: A systematic review.

Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 51

Most referenced authors 412