Establishing a Culture of Early Adoption of Healthy Eating Habits and Intuitive Eating among Preschoolers

Establishing healthy eating habits at a young age is essential for promoting optimal health and wellbeing among children. Poor eating habits may increase risk for the development of diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs), weight gain, and childhood obesity. Dieting is a common treatment for childhood obesity, but dieting often results in weight regain within a few years and increased risk for obesity later in life. As an alternative to dieting, this study explored intuitive eating as a tool to positively influence eating patterns, encourage healthy eating habits, and encourage early adoption of non-dieting eating behaviors among preschoolers. Preschoolers participated in a 4-week study, including 2 weeks of nutrition and intuitive eating education in the classroom that encouraged them to accept new fruits and vegetables and to stop eating when they recognized feelings of hunger satisfaction. Story books were sent home to reinforce education provided in the classroom. This feasibility study found no significant changes in the preschoolers’ fruit and vegetable intake and no significant changes in hunger ratings reported after snack time. Despite the lack of significant changes in eating habits, the valuable information gleaned from this feasibility study has laid the foundation for future researchers to continue the work of developing successful and sustainable childhood obesity prevention programs.