Parental Involvement: A Strategy that Influences a Child's Health Related Behaviour

Introduction: The current phenomenon of children’s life style, which is more inclined towards an unhealthy life style centred on an unbalanced diet, lack of fruits and vegetables and lack of physical activity, has become the cause for a rise in cases of child obesity.

Aim: The objective of this study is to explore the involvement of parents as a strategy that could influence a healthy growth and health-related behaviour among children.

Material and Methods: A study on developing a health education program involving 40 parents was carried out in a Children’s Early Education Centre. The data was collected using video recordings, photographs and anecdotal notes of observations before, during and after the program was implemented, feedback from parents (including photographs and notes by parents) and the children’s weight and BMI index were analysed using the SPSS version 13.0.

Results: The analysis showed that there were differences between the children’s health-related behaviour and the need for parental involvement (p=0.001)

Conclusions: Parental involvement is the main strategy and ingredient in early child education that could influence the healthy growth and health-related behaviour of children. The study suggests that school health nurses prepare attractive weekly programs that promote health transformation for children with the involvement of their parents.

Author(s):

Maziah Ahmad Marzuki and Saemah Rahman

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