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Is There a Difference Between Center and Home Care Providers’ Training, Perceptions, and Practices Related to Obesity Prevention?

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Abstract

To compare the obesity related training, practices, and perceptions of home child care providers and center care providers. A self-administered survey was collected from child care providers who attended local child care training workshops in east central Illinois from March 2009 to August 2010. Study results were based on responses from 88 home care providers and 94 center providers. The survey questions addressed child care providers’ training in the prior year, their obesity prevention practices including written policies, their perceptions of influences on children’s health, and factors determining food menu selection. Paired t tests and Chi-square tests were used to compare the difference by child care type. 81.9% of home care providers and 58.6% of center care providers received nutrition training, while 66.7 and 43.0% of these providers received physical activity training, respectively. Nutrition content, guidelines or state regulations, and food availability were the most important factors that influenced both types of care providers’ food service menus. Both care provider types perceived they have less influence on children’s food preferences, eating habits, and weight status compared to the home environment. However, home care providers perceived a smaller discrepancy between the influences of child care and home environments compared to center care providers. Compared to center providers, home care providers were more likely to have had training, be involved with health promotion activities, and rate their influence higher on children’s health behaviors. Findings underscore the need for obesity prevention efforts in both types of child care settings.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Ms. Lou Anne Burton at CCRS for her guidance and assistance during the survey at local child care training workshops. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Hyun Shin Park at University of Sung Kyun Kwan for his guidance and thoughtful comments on survey development and analysis and lastly Ms. Jasmine Abdullh at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her assistance on survey collection and data procedure.

Conflict of interest

None of the authors has any conflict of interest on this manuscript to report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, 1206 South Fourth St., 213 Huff Hall, 61820, Champaign, IL, USA

    Juhee Kim & Jae Eun Shim

  2. Research Institute of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Jae Eun Shim

  3. Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Angela R. Wiley & Brent A. McBride

  4. Graduate School of Governance, Sung Kyun Kwan University, Seoul, Korea

    Keunsei Kim

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  1. Juhee Kim
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Correspondence to Juhee Kim.

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Kim, J., Shim, J.E., Wiley, A.R. et al. Is There a Difference Between Center and Home Care Providers’ Training, Perceptions, and Practices Related to Obesity Prevention?. Matern Child Health J 16, 1559–1566 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-011-0874-x

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