Childhood obesity has become a national epidemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012), affecting one in eight preschoolers. Overweight children are more likely to become overweight adults and face serious health problems (Pulgaron, 2013). The preventive intervention Promoting Healthy Development uses 10 tightly sequenced, structured, and scripted food preparation lessons to help parents sensitively scaffold the development of toddlers' self-regulation skills - a robust predictor of excessive weight gain (Francis & Susman, 2009) - and healthy eating habits. Promoting Healthy Development was designed for toddlers whose deliberate self-regulation skills are just beginning to emerge (Kopp, 1982) and whose taste preferences are being formed (Birch & Ventura, 2009). The intervention was designed to be integrated into Early Head Start to take advantage of this national home visiting program's pre-existing infrastructure for implementation and to serve children living in poverty who are at highest risk for problems with both self-regulation skills (Evans & English, 2002) and healthy eating habits (Wang & Lim, 2012). Results of a pilot study (N = 74) indicate that Early Head Start home visitors are able to implement Promoting Healthy Development with fidelity and that the intervention compelled parents to engage in the sensitive scaffolding behaviors that should improve children's self-regulation skills and healthy eating habits. The proposed study will utilize a randomized-controlled design to test efficacy with a larger sample (N = 240). If successful, Promoting Healthy Development will be one of the first preventive interventions to change low- income children's self-regulation skills and healthy eating habits.
Childhood obesity has become a national epidemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012), affecting one in eight preschoolers. The preventive intervention Promoting Healthy Development uses 10 tightly sequenced, structured, and scripted food preparation lessons, delivered as part of Early Head Start home visits, to help low-income parents sensitively scaffold the development of toddlers' self-regulation skills - a robust predictor of excessive weight gain (Francis & Susman, 2009) - and healthy eating habits. Guided by a strong conceptual model that targets critical proximal causes before problems stabilize in high- risk populations (Coie et al., 1993), this preventive intervention relies on the pre-existing Early Head Start infrastructure to facilitate wide-spread dissemination and easy sustainability (Bumbarger & Perkins, 2008). If successful, Promoting Healthy Development will be one of the first preventive interventions to change low-income children's self-regulation skills and healthy eating habits, yielding life-long benefits to multiple dimensions of well-being in the process (Deckelbaum & Williams, 2001; Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013).
