Health and Wellbeing During the Preschool Years

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The overall goal of the current project is to conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to measure the effectiveness of the MEND 2-4 program. The intervention will provide information to parents and support them to establish and/or maintain healthy behaviours and attitudes around diet and physical activity for themselves and their preschool child(ren). In comparison to the wait-list control group, at the completion of the 10-week intervention program, and at 6 and 12 months post intervention, the intervention group preschoolers will: (1) demonstrate greater consumption of fruit and vegetables, and a decrease in consumption of high fat, high sugar cordials, soft-drinks and juices and non-essential, energy dense snack foods; (2) exhibit less problematic eating habits, specifically higher responsiveness to satiety, less fussiness, and less neophobia; (3) demonstrate greater increases in physical activity and greater decreases in time spent in sedentary behaviours, specifically TV viewing; (4) exhibit lower BMI-for-age z scores. In comparison to the wait-list control group, at the completion of the intervention program, and at 6 and 12 months post intervention, the intervention group parents will: (1) increase the frequency with which they limit the offering of high fat, high sugar cordials, soft-drinks and juices and non-essential, energy dense snack foods to their child; (2) increase the frequency with which they offer vegetables and fruit, water and milk (rather than cordials, soft-drinks and juices) to their child; (3) demonstrate improved knowledge regarding key aspects of child eating, physical activity and sedentary behaviours relevant to the prevention of obesity and improving child health generally; (4) reduce the frequency with which they use restrictive feeding practices and increase the frequency with which they use covert methods of controlling access to unhealthy foods; (5) increase the frequency with which they model healthy behaviours around diet and physical activity; (6) provide greater opportunities for children to engage in physical activity and reduce their opportunities for engagement in sedentary behaviours.