Reviewing Current State Child Care Regulations Related to Healthy Eating and Developing Model Healthy Eating Regulations

Start Date: September 2008

ID #: 65067

Principal Investigator: Jonathan Finkelstein, MD, MPH

Co-Principal Investigator: Sara Benjamin Neelon, PhD, MPH, RD

Organization: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Funding Round: Round 3

See more related research

Share

The overall goal of this project is to develop relevant, evidence-based resources to guide the creation or revision of state-level child care regulations aimed at promoting healthy eating. Investigators will systematically review and categorize data on state regulations for child-care centers and family child-care homes, and states will receive a ‘report card’ outlining their grade within the following categories: nutrients, overweight prevention, healthy eating environment, and adult role modeling. A model framework for state nutrition regulations will be developed and reviewed based on feedback from three expert panels. Investigators will examine the prevalence of healthy eating regulations for child-care centers and family child-care homes across states, in addition to examining patterns in state regulations by U.S. census track regions and date of most recent update.

Keywords: Child Care/Preschool, Home, Nutrition standards, Physical activity

Focus Area: Early Childhood

Resource Type: Grant Summary

State: National

Age Group: Preschool-age children (ages 3 to 5)

Related Research

December 2009

Preventing Obesity in the Child Care Setting: Evaluating State Regulations

This report evaluates states’ healthy eating and physical activity regulations for two types of child care facilities: child-care centers and child-care homes. To determine states’ performance, experts first compiled a list of top ten healthy eating and top ten physical activity regulations, then compared this list against existing child-care regulations for the 50 United States, More

August 2025

Diet Quality and Weight Status are Predicted by Federal Nutrition Assistance Program Participation, Health, and Demographics

This study investigated whether demographic, social, and economic determinants of health, including length of time participating in safety net programs, are associated with diet quality and weight status in early childhood. Using the WIC infant and toddler feeding practices study-2, classification and regression tree identified the sequence of binary splits that best differentiated the sample More

February 2025

Consumption of the Food Groups with the Revised Benefits in the New WIC Food Package: A Scoping Review

On 18 April 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the first food package changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in over a decade, which reduced some food benefits (juice, milk, canned fish, and infant fruits and vegetables) and offered substitutes (cash-value vouchers (CVVs) or cash-value More