Happy Family, Healthy Kids Program

Child dietary intake will be assessed by the 41-item Block Kids Food Screener. The Block Kids Food Screener is a food frequency questionnaire used to assess dietary intake of fruits, vegetables, dairy, whole grains, protein sources, saturated fat, and added sugars in youth aged 2-17 years old. It has been shown to have significant relationships (r=0.53-0.88) with Nutrition Data System for Research 24-h food recall data. The Block Kids Food Screener has acceptable Cronbach's alphas of 0.76-0.77 for the survey items assessing fruit and vegetable intake among Head Start preschoolers. The completed surveys will be processed and analyzed by NutritionQuest, and the number of cups of fruit and vegetable consumed per day will be used to describe children's fruit and vegetable intake, with a higher number indicating a healthier eating behavior.

Child eating style will be assessed by the 35-item Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire. It has five response choices ranging from 1=never to 5=always. The Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire has eight factors including food responsiveness, emotional overeating, enjoyment of food, desire to drink, satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, emotional undereating, and food fussiness with good reliability and validity among preschoolers. A mean score (min-max: 1-5) for the emotional overeating factor will be calculated, with a higher mean factor score indicating a higher level of emotional overeating.

Height and weight will be measured to the nearest 0.1 cm with a ShorrBoard stadiometer and to the nearest 0.1 kg with a Seca model 874 portable electronic weight scale, respectively. All measurements will occur in a private room with participants removing their shoes, jackets, or heavy clothes. BMI z-score for age and sex will be determined via SAS program for CDC Growth Charts. The BMI Z-score indicates the number of standard deviations away from the mean. A Z-score of 0 is equal to the mean of a reference population. Negative numbers indicate values lower than the reference population and positive numbers indicate values higher than the reference population. A negative change in Z-scores indicates a favorable outcome.

Both systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) will be measured using the Omron HEM-705-CP digital blood pressure monitor in the right arm of each relaxed (rest at least 15 minutes) and seated participant. The Omron HEM-705-CP can provide accurate estimation of blood pressure in both children and adults with a sensitivity of 82% and specificity of 98%.

Parental knowledge of health eating will be assessed by the 10-item Parental Nutrition Knowledge Scale. This scale has been used with Head Start parents to assess their knowledge level. The sum of the 10 items, with a range from 0 to 10, will be calculated, with a higher sum score indicating greater knowledge on healthy eating and physical activity.

Parental self-efficacy for supporting health eating will be assessed with the 12-item Parental Eating Self-Efficacy Scale. The scale has shown to have a good internal consistency reliability of 0.94 with Head Start parents. The mean score of the 12 items, with a range from 0 to 10, will be calculated, with a higher mean score indicating greater self-efficacy.

Parental support for health eating will be measured by the 7-item Parental Support Scale for Eating Habits. A prior study with Head Start parents showed that the scale had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.87. The mean score of the seven items, with a range from 1 to 6, will be calculated, with a higher mean score indicating greater parental support.

Parental feeding practice skill will be assessed by the Child Feeding Questionnaire. The Child Feeding Questionnaire has seven factors: perceived responsibility, perceived caregiver weight, perceived child weight, concerns about child weight, restriction, pressure to eat, and monitoring with good Cronbach's alphas of 0.73, 0.80, 0.75, 0.73, 0.69, 0.65, and 0.82 among Head Start parents, respectively. The mean score of the items for each factor, with a range from 1 to 5, will be calculated, with a higher mean score indicating greater perceived responsibility, perceived caregiver weight, perceived child weight, concerns about child weight, pressure to eat, restriction, and monitoring, respectively.

Parental perceived stress will be assessed by the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Literature has support that the 10-item PSS has better psychometric properties than the original 14-item PSS. It has five response choices from 0=never to 4=very often. The sum score of the 10 items will be calculated, with a higher sum score indicating a higher perceived stress level.

Parental coping strategies will be assessed by the 28-item Brief COPE. The Brief COPE measures 14 coping strategies including self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance use, use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, behavioral disengagement, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame. It has four response choices from "1=not at all" to "4=a lot". A sum score, range from 2 to 8, for each coping strategy will be calculated, with a higher sum score indicating a higher level of that coping strategy used.

Parent fruit/vegetable/fiber intake will be assessed by the 7-item Block Fruit/Vegetable/Fiber Screener. The screener had significant relationships with the 1995 Block 100-item Food Frequency Questionnaire (r=0.71 for fruit/vegetable intake and 0.62 for fiber intake). It has good Cronbach's alphas of 0.75-0.76 among Head Start parents. The survey has six response choices ranging from 0=less than one per week to 5=2 or more a day. Following the equations provided by the NutritionQuest, the number of fruit and vegetable servings per day will be calculated to describe parents' fruit and vegetable intake.

Parental emotional eating will be assessed by the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R18). The TFEQ-R18 has three domains: uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, and cognitive restraint, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.84, 0.92, and 0.70, respectively, among U.S. healthy weight, overweight, and obese adults. Another study with tumor survivors aged 15-39 years old further supports the reliability and factor structure of the scale. It has four response choices ranging from 1="definitely false" to 4="definitely true". The mean score of each domain will be calculated, with a higher mean score indicating a higher level of uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, and cognitive restraint, respectively.

Home eating environment will be assessed by the 10-item Family Nutrition Screening Tool, with good construct validity in young children. Evidence has shown that the healthier home eating environment is related to healthier BMI and lower odds of food insecurity. It has four response choices ranging from 1=never/almost never to 4=very often/always. The sum score of the 10 items, with a range from 10 to 40, will be calculated, with a higher sum score indicating a healthier home environment.

Food security status in the past 12 months will be assessed by the 18-item U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module. It has two subscales: a 10-item Adult Food Security subscale and an 8-item Child Food Security subscale. Raw score, ranging from 0 to 18, will be calculated for the whole scale, adult subscale, and child subscale, respectively, with a higher raw score indicating a higher level of food insecurity. Household will be categorized as 0-2=food secure and 3-18=food insecure.

Body mass index will be calculated based on weight (kg)/height (m2). Data collection procedures for parents will be similar to those employed for preschoolers.