Physical activity policies and practices of childcare centres in Australia

Abstract

There is substantial scope for childcare services to modify their policies and practices to be more supportive of child physical activity.

Factors associated with early childhood education and care service implementation of healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices in Australia: a cross-sectional study

“…1 Faculty of Health, School of Medicine and Public Health, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia skill activities, while 25-28 % allowed children to participate in sedentary screen time daily (such as television viewing) [17]. A review of comparable international literature also suggests that there is considerable scope to improve the nutritional quality of food provided to children and the time children spend in physical activity while in care [16].…”

“…Past research has identified that a lack of knowledge and appropriate resources are barriers to the implementation of obesity prevention programs in ECEC services [18]. Similarly, a small number of studies have identified that the socioeconomic and geographic location of ECEC services is associated with implementation of obesity prevention initiatives, as is the level of implementation support provided to services [17,19]. However, past research which has focused on a relatively narrow set of implementation factors provides limited data to inform strategies to maximise implementation of health promoting policies and practices in ECEC services.…”

“…In NSW, both preschools and long day care services provide center-based programs for children 3-5 years of age to help children prepare for school [23]. The healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices of both service types are similar [15,17]. The Hunter New England region covers more than 130,000 km 2 and encompasses regional cities, rural, and remote communities, with a population of 60,970 children aged 0-5 years and over 350 centerbased ECEC services.…”

“…These items were based on those previously reported in the literature to describe service operational characteristics [15,17].…”

“…Population-based surveys, however, suggest that current healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices in ECEC services are not consistent with such guidelines [15][16][17]. For example, a recent survey found that only 48-50 % of Australian center-based ECEC services had a written physical activity policy and 46-60 % programed time each day for fundamental movement Implications Practice: Securing the support of early childhood education and care (ECEC) service managers, management committees, and parents is important in assisting services to implement obesity prevention policies and practices.…”