Page Contents
Overview
Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance
Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change
Intervention Reach and Adoption
Setting: Child care (Learn), Community (Live), Indian Tribal Organizations, Retail (Shop/Eat)
Target Audience: Preschool (<5 years), Parents/Mothers/Fathers
Race/Ethnicity: Special focus on Latinx and American Indian communities and families
Intervention Components
Intervention Materials
- Curriculum: 64 nutrition lessons designed to be carried out over the course of 2 years and 115 structured physical activities, all developmentally appropriate for children aged 3-5 years
- CHILE Plus Family Engagement Materials: nutrition and physical activity newsletters, activities, and recipes
- Virtual Professional Training: health education for teachers and kitchen staff; demonstration of physical activity and nutrition curriculum
Intervention Costs
Evidence Summary
- CHILE Plus participants had a slight (.17 servings) increase in fruit and vegetable consumption from baseline to follow-up, but the difference wasn’t statistically significant.
- CHILE Plus participants had a decrease (.69 days) of days when half the plate was fruits and vegetables from baseline to follow-up. The decrease was statistically significant (p<.05).
- There was an association between the frequency with which children helped prepare meals and the average servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Children who helped prepare meals at least once per day consumed significantly more fruits and vegetables than children who almost never helped prepare meals.
In 2021, CHILE Plus teachers reported conducting 926 CHILE Plus classroom nutrition lessons, offering 12,999 tasting opportunities. Target foods were served during a meal or snack in 83.53% of all weeks reported. A majority (95.74%) of all classroom days in session reported at least 30 minutes of structured physical activity, and 44.74% reported 60 minutes or more, an average of 53.36 minutes per day of structured PA.
Published research on CHILE include the following:
- CHILE: an evidence-based preschool intervention for obesity prevention in Head Start
- Integrating formative assessment and participatory research: Building healthier communities in the CHILE Project
- Effects of an Obesity Prevention Intervention on Physical Activity Among Preschool Children: The CHILE Study
- CHILE: Outcomes of a group randomized controlled trial of an intervention to prevent obesity in preschool Hispanic and American Indian children
- The impact of the CHILE intervention on the food served in Head Start centers in rural New Mexico
- Cross-sectional relationships between household food insecurity and child BMI, feeding behaviors, and public assistance utilization among Head Start children from predominantly Hispanic and American Indian communities in the CHILE study
- Effect of WIC food package changes on dietary intake of preschool children in New Mexico
Evaluation Indicators
Readiness and Capacity – Short Term (ST) | Changes – Medium Term (MT) | Effectiveness and Maintenance – Long Term (LT) | Population Results (R) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Individual | ST1, ST3 | MT1, MT3 | ||
Environmental Settings | ||||
Sectors of Influence |
Evaluation Materials
- Online module checklists, wherein teachers report weekly completion of specified nutrition lessons; how many children were present; how many tasted the food; minutes of structured physical activity per day, and any comments.
- Professional development evaluations, completed at each session and analyzed for appropriateness, fit, and to identify additional training needs.
Additional Information
Contact Person:
Nan Zeng, PhD
Principal Investigator
505-272-4462
NZeng@salud.unm.edu
*Updated as of August 20, 2023