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Intervention programs for childcare centers will help teachers, staff include more activity in the school day
August 9, 2013
Dr. Russ Pate leads the Children's Physical
Activity Research Group at USC's Arnold
School of Public Health.
The preschool playground may be the place where the solution to childhood obesity begins.
Dr. Russ Pate, a professor of exercise science at the Arnold School of Public Health, has received a $556,030 grant from The Duke Endowment that will focus on implementing a program for early childhood educators to help young children become more physically active.
The funding for this program is timely. Nearly 27 percent of children ages 2 to 5 are overweight or obese, and more than 4.2 million American children in this age group attend childcare centers and preschools.
Adding to the problem is the trend toward children spending more time in structured settings, where they are more likely to be sitting or lying down, and less time in unstructured settings that might encourage play and physical activity.
"This trend has profound implications for physical activity among young children. Children spend 89 percent of their time in sedentary activities when they are in childcare centers or preschools," said Pate, who leads the Children's Physical Activity Research Group at USC's Arnold School.
"The Institute of Medicine recommends that childcare centers provide opportunities for children to participate in physical activity for at least 15 minutes per hour, but the majority of centers do not meet this goal," he said.
Pate recently completed a National Institutes of Health-funded study of a physical activity intervention in 16 preschools. This study, which used an objective measure of physical activity (accelerometry), demonstrated a significant effect on children's physical activity during the school day.
The new program will adapt these findings for the intervention study that will have broader distribution at childcare centers and preschools across South Carolina.
Through The Duke Endowment grant, childcare and preschool directors and teachers will learn how to use intervention information and materials for implementing the physical activity intervention at their individual schools.
"During the three years of the proposed study, we will train the teaching staff in 40 childcare centers/preschools, an estimated 200 persons," Pate said. "We estimate that approximately 2,400 children attend the 40 centers that will participate in the proposed program. The long-term goal is to make the program available to all childcare centers/preschools in South Carolina."
Materials will be developed to help teachers integrate physical activity into academic lessons and increase teacher-led physical activity opportunities in the classroom and during recess. These efforts will create a childcare center and preschool environment that supports and promotes children's physical activity, Pate said.
"The joint problems of childhood obesity and low physical activity are not improving and are unlikely to improve without effective and sustained intervention," he said. "These problems increasingly are receiving national, state and local attention, and effective approaches to reducing them are in demand."
The Arnold School award is among more than $57 million in new grants from The Duke Endowment to organizations in North Carolina and South Carolina.
"These new grants touch lives across our two states by providing quality programs for vulnerable families, improved health care, support for students in college, and resources for rural communities," said Minor Shaw, trustee and chair of The Duke Endowment. "We believe these initiatives carry on our founder's vision of strengthening the Carolinas and making a lasting impact on the region."
