Engaging the Community Child Care Centers to Achieve Nutritious Menu Plan and Vegetable Intake Promotion for Preschoolers in Ubon Ratchathani

OBJECTIVES: Food and nutrition during childhood plays a crucial role for child's growth and development. In Thailand, community child care center established by a Local Authority Organization provides early childhood education and growth development support to a rural child. This research aims to develop a nutritious menu for lunch meal served in the community child care centers. METHODS: This research used a Participatory Action Research (PAR) for engaging the community child care centers to achieve nutritious menu plan and vegetable intake promotion for preschoolers in Ubon Ratchathani. There were 105 participants joined the research. The intervention includes increasing nutrition knowledge of the cookers, teachers, and parents of children. The development of 1-moth menu planning by the collaboration group participants was conducted. The statistical analysis involved frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Paired t–test. The selected nutritive value of developed menu was analyzed by Inmucal program Version 3.0. RESULTS: The participants agreed to use the developed menu-cycle to serve children in all centers with approval from the local government organization. There were significantly increasing of diet and nutrition knowledge scores of the participants (from 11.56 to 12.61). After the intervention, it was found that creating policy guidelines set by the local administrative can lead to improvement of nutritive value of the developed menu. CONCLUSIONS: The community child care center is suitable for promoting nutrition of preschool children in rural area. This research used the participatory action research to involve of cookers, teachers, and parents in designing nutritious menu cycle served in the child care center. This strategy may helpful for child care providers to ensure quality lunch meal for preschool children. FUNDING SOURCES: Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University (UBRU), Thailand.