UAMS announced Monday that researcher Taren Massey-Swindle and a Louisiana Tech University collaborator have secured a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to improve feeding practices at 80 early childhood care and education sites in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Massey-Swindle and Julie Rutledge found in prior studies that early childhood care and education settings frequently use inappropriate feeding practices such as hurrying children and encouraging them to eat more. Such practices contribute to eating less healthy foods, overeating and long-term food rejections.
A big part of the five-year grant is its “de-implementation” plans for eliminating inappropriate feeding practices, UAMS said in a news release. While early childhood teachers and caregivers may mean well, their words and actions can undermine long-term healthy eating habits.
“We have no negative judgment for these teachers,” Massey-Swindle, a former early-childhood educator and now associate professor at UAMS, said in the release. “When I was a child care provider myself, I told children to clean their plates and make a happy plate. I had no training in how to support children around positive feeding practices at mealtime.”
The 80 sites are in the Little Rock and Russellville areas in Arkansas and in the Ruston and New Orleans areas in Louisiana.
By the end of the five-year study, the researchers expect to have determined the effectiveness of a package of strategies that can be applied and tailored for early care and education settings across the U.S. They also expect that by removing inappropriate feeding practices, their results will show a positive impact on children’s dietary behaviors. They will track children’s willingness to try different foods, fear of new foods, and how many fruits and vegetables they eat.
“From a scientific perspective, we’re going to be answering some really compelling questions about whether de-implementation effects can be sustained over time,” Massey-Swindle said.
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