Head Start Preschool Administrators’ Barriers, Motivators, and Facilitators to Implementing Nutrition Education

Abstract

One‐third of low‐income preschool‐age children, like those in Head Start (HS), are overweight or obese. National HS requirements state that funded programs must provide nutritious meals, snacks, and nutrition education (NE) to enrolled children. Studies investigating administrator barriers, motivators, and facilitators (BMF) related to NE in the preschool classroom are limited. However in K‐12 settings, teachers describe a lack of available classroom time as a barrier and a personal commitment to the content as a motivator, and access to nutrition professionals, who could aid in the development of lesson plans, as a facilitator to NE in the classroom. In the current study, in‐depth individual telephone interviews were conducted with HS administrators to determine perceived BMF related to implementing of NE in the preschool classroom. Administrators were interviewed based on their familiarity with HS NE requirements. While HS administrators were motivated by a desire to prevent childhood obesity and found that policies that regulated NE facilitated implementation, they still faced barriers, including a lack of NE knowledge and higher ranking priorities for the classrooms. NE researchers can use this information to design materials and training for HS staff that target the challenges faced in the HS facilities while emphasizing motivating and facilitating factors.