Journal Club 10: Influence of Teachers? Health Behaviors on Operationalizing Obesity Prevention Policy in Head Start

(Recorded 5/2/17)

Speaker: Monica Kazlausky Esquivel, PhD, RDN, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

http://www.jneb.org/article/S1499-4046(16)00071-3/fulltext

Strategies to improve teacher health status and behaviors included in a multi-component policy intervention aimed at child obesity prevention may produce a greater effect on classroom environments.

Learning objectives:
1. To review the literature on factors that affect the efficacy of child care center wellness policy implementation on the obesogenic environment within preschool settings.
2. To discuss how the Children's Healthy Living Program child care wellness policy intervention was designed to address multiple levels of the socioecological model to positively influence the nutrition and physical activity environments in Head Start classrooms.
3. To identify key strategies and lessons learned from this program that could support effective wellness policy implementation in child care centers to address childhood obesity.

Monica Kazlausky Esquivel RD, PhD is a nutrition lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition Food and Animal Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and Director of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Wai‘anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. Her work focuses on health promotion and disease prevention efforts that are multi-level in nature and community based. Monica completed her doctoral graduate studies in nutrition at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and was a recipient of a Children's Healthy Living Program for Remote Underserved Minority Populations in the Pacific Region training scholarship.