Obesity Prevention within the Early Childhood Education and Care Setting: A Systematic Review of Dietary Behavior and Physical Activity Policies and Guidelines in High Income Countries

Jacklyn Kay Jackson, Jannah Jones, Hanh Nguyen, Isabella Davies, Melanie Lum, Alice Grady and Sze Lin Yoong
Additional contact information
Jacklyn Kay Jackson: Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Jannah Jones: Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Hanh Nguyen: School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Isabella Davies: School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Melanie Lum: Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Alice Grady: Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Sze Lin Yoong: Faculty of Health and Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: As a strategy for early childhood obesity prevention, a variety of dietary behavior and physical activity policies and guidelines published by leading health agencies and early childhood education and care (ECEC) licensing and accreditation bodies exist. Given the potential diversity in recommendations from these policies, this narrative review sought to synthesize, appraise and describe the various policies and guidelines made by organizational and professional bodies to highlight consistent recommendations and identify opportunities to strengthen such policies. An electronic bibliographic search of seven online databases and grey literature sources was undertaken. Records were included if they were policies or guidelines with specific recommendations addressing dietary behavior and/or physical activity practice implementation within the ECEC setting; included children aged >12 months and <6 years and were developed for high income countries. Recommended dietary behavior and physical activity policies and practices were synthesized into broad themes using the Analysis Grid for Environments Linked to Obesity framework, and the quality of included guidelines appraised. Our search identified 38 eligible publications mostly from the US and Australia. Identified guidelines were largely consistent in their recommendation and frequently addressed the physical and sociocultural environment and were well-aligned with research evidence. Broader consideration of policy and economic environments may be needed to increase the impact of such policies and guidelines within the ECEC setting.

Keywords: early childhood education and care; obesity prevention; policies and practices; dietary behavior; physical activity; systematic review; practice guidelines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/838/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/838/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:2:p:838-:d:483303

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().