Healthy Childcare Centre of the Future

Detailed Summary

Rationale: In 2015-2020, the Dutch 'Healthy Primary School of the Future' intervention took place. Two schools became 'Healthy Primary Schools of the Future'; providing a healthy lunch and structured physical activity (PA) sessions. Two other 'Physical Activity Schools' only implemented the PA sessions. The intervention showed promising effects on children's BMI z-score and dietary and PA behaviours. Following these promising results, childcare centres of educational board Prisma have expressed their interest in implementing changes fitting the 'Healthy Primary School of the Future'. However, this is more complex than it seems to be, as budget to implement changes is lower and all childcare centres have a unique context. Therefore, there is a need to investigate how 'Healthy Primary School of the Future' can successfully be implemented in various, real-life school-settings. It is hypothesised that to maximise implementation and sustainability, each childcare centre will need to put together a set of changes and interventions which fit the context and needs of all stakeholders involved. No intervention is allocated in this study other than activities planned by childcare centres in accordance with wishes and needs of stakeholders. Objective: To study the implementation of 'Healthy Childcare Centre of the Future' in different school-contexts and develop guidelines that can be used to facilitate widespread dissemination of the initiative. Secondary objectives include evaluating the initiative's effects on children's BMI z-score, general health, dietary and PA behaviours and school well-being. To reach these objectives, a process evaluation, effect evaluation and cost-effectiveness evaluation will be executed. Data will be collected using questionnaires (parents, children, teachers, directors), anthropometric measures (children), interviews (teachers, directors), observations and analyses of minutes of meetings.

Study Details

Timeline

Interventions