Evridiki Zachopoulou, Eleni Deli, Eleni Timpa & Efthimios Trevlas

Alexandrio Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki Dept. of Early Childhood Care & Education, Greece 

Parents’ opinions about the impact of a physical

education program to their children’s healthy

behavior

EU SOCRATES Program, Comenius 2.1 Action

118192-CP-1-2004-1-GR-COMENIUS-C21

What is a healthy lifestyle?

“A healthy lifestyle is a way of living that lowers the

risk of being seriously ill or dying early…it is also

about physical, mental and social well-being.”

(WHO,1999)

Components of a healthy lifestyle

Activity levels

FitnessEmotional well-being

Personal safety

Smoking

NutritionAlcohol

and drugs

Healthy well-being

Worldwide health concerns- overweight and obese

• Child obesity is described as a “pandemic of the new millennium” (Kimm & Obarzanek, 2002)

• Globally, over 1 billion adults are overweight & 300 million estimated to be obese

• An estimated 2 million children under 5 are thought to be overweight

• Strong link between overweight as a child, becoming overweight as an adult and developing Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)

Some examples

• “Sixty percent of Italian children under the age of 18 are overweight, a figure which has doubled in 4 or 5 years. ”(Signora Moratti, Minister of Education)

• 25.3% of Greek 6-10 year olds are overweight (Krassas,

G.E et al, 2001)

• Cyprus reports overweight levels of over 20% in the 7-11 age group (IOTF, March 2005)

The UK Example• Children’s activity levels decline with age (especially in girls)

• 1/3rd of boys and ½ of girls are inactive and lead sedentary lifestyle

• Approximately 16% of 6-15 year olds are obese

• It is estimated that inactivity in the UK costs the National Health Service £8.2 billion per annum- with obesity costing £2.5 billion alone

• For up to 1/3rd of children, PE in school is the only activity they do

• The UK currently has the first generation of children whose life expectancy is shorter than their parents

Source: Department of Health, 2004

EARLY

STEPS

 

       The Early Steps Project brings out the following:

• The meaning of the physical education for preschoolers

•  The movement as a way of expression, development, learning

•  Through physical education improvement of all domains of

development

•   Improvement of the quality of school education 

•   European dimension to the field of physical education &

early childhood education

Child’s body as the primary learning center

building the foundations for future overall development and learning

Meanings of the Movement for the young child

movement means discovery of the environment

movement is an important ingredient in communication

movement means acceptance

movement is sheer enjoyment and pleasure

movement means freedom and safety

Main hypothesis of ‘Early Steps’ project

Could healthy issues be taught to preschoolers

through movement activities ?

1st year 1) Planning the Early Steps PE curriculum (ESPEC)2) Training of school education staff  2nd year 1) Implementation of the Early Steps PE curriculum2) Evaluation of program implementation 3rd year 1) Production of the final version of the Early Steps PE curriculum based on

the results of the evaluation procedure 2) Dissemination of the results of the project

Duration of ‘Early Steps’ project10/2004 – 09/2007

Implementation of ESPEC

Writing Phase Training Phase

Preparing the educational materials: ESPEC – Healthy Lifestyle (24 lessons) ESPEC – Social Interaction (24 lessons)

1st Training Seminar: Finland (04/2005) 2nd Training Seminar: Greece (05/2005)

Writing Phase

Training Phase

ESPEC – Healthy LifestyleStandard

Through the acquisition and the development of motor skills, preschool children will have a desire to be involved in a healthy lifestyle

Goal 1To be involved in a variety of physical activitiesGoal 2Recognise the changes in body functions during physical activitiesGoal 3Become aware of healthy lifestyle activities 

4 Early Educators

(Greece)

ESPEC-Healthy Lifestyle

3 months2 times weekly

40 – 45 min94 children(50 boys, 44 girls)

4 – 5 years old24 Lessons

Supervision Sheet

Attendance Sheet Assessment procedure

Questionnaire for program evaluation Questionnaire for children Checklist for parents Checklist for children Interviews with teachers and PARENTS

The purpose of this paper :

to present parents’ opinions about

the impact of ESPEC – Healthy Lifestyle

implementation on their children’s healthy

choices

during their everyday life

25 semi-structured interviews were carried out

with the parents

whose children participated in ESPEC – Healthy Lifestyle

Each interview was recorded and then transcribed verbatim

After ESPEC – Healthy Lifestyle implementation

Questions ??????

What are the major advantages (benefits) of ESPEC ? What are the major disadvantages of ESPEC ? Can you please describe to me the most positive effects of ESPEC ?

(for children, teacher, school) Can you please describe to me the most negative effects of

ESPEC ? What is the value of such programs?

Parent’s Interviews

….My child sometimes sees other children on the streets

eating chocolates and lollipops and he tells me: “Look

daddy, these children harm their health with these

things that they eat”…..

NUTRITION

…..Some days ago, my son ate, for his first time,

mandarin oranges and he thinks that he is very strong,

has taken many vitamins and is growing very fast……

In the past, he used to drink milk because he liked it, now he tells me

“milk has calcium and is good for me”… he drinks it for these

reasons too.

NUTRITION

…..My son continuously asks what the ingredients of each food are and

the way that they help. And he wants me to tell him all about fruits,

vegetables, everything…he is very interested. I see an incredible change

on my son, John. I am totally impressed with my child and I see a huge

difference…..

NUTRITION

I never followed a healthy life style. But now my son even gives

healthy food to his sister who is much younger than him…he wants

to make her eat right, and he forces us to eat right food, if he does

not always follow it, it is because he is afraid of trying new tastes.

NUTRITION

….Sometimes I see my daughter at home in the evenings, after

playing with her toys, she says: “Now I’m going to the gym

(meaning her room) in order to exercise myself” leaving her play for

a short time. She continues by saying, “I’m going inside for a while

and I will come back”….

EXERCISE

I have caught them some evenings at home sitting together while one of them holds a paper and a pencil and pretends to be a teacher:

“Is it good when we run?”

“It’s good!” answers the other.

“Well done!”

“Is it good when we exercise and our hearts beats faster?”

“It’s good!”

“Well done!”

 Many times lately they play this game…and they ask their father and I to join in. This morning, when we were eating breakfast, suddenly they asked him: “When you wake up does you heart beat faster?”

EXERCISE

…..He knows how to understand his breathing, and “Now,

Daddy, my heart is beating much more” he said. When he runs

and gets tired, he tries to take some position on the floor and rest

himself. This is something he never did before; he does it as a

program……

EXERCISE

He has us exercise at home and pretends that he is the teacher. He directs us as

to what we should do, and this is his favorite game. Now there are four of us in

the house and we exercise together … we listen to him because I believe that it’s

good for us. He also has his younger sister, who is very young, exercise.

Sometimes, he has us walk like giants and dwarfs. I don’t know if you do this at

the school, but he also likes to have us walk along paths between some obstacles

and to jump onto these obstacles.

EXERCISE

She always waited with excitement, “Oh! Today we didn’t go to the

gym”. I don’t know for what reason the lesson was cancelled; and

when we went to the lesson “Oh, today we did this ….and they said

that….”. At the beginning, I didn’t understand. “You do all this

things at school?”

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

She comes home excited and tells me “we played this game….”.

She likes it so much, she sees it as a game and not as a lesson,

and she shows it at her brother. They play a game and she says:

“chocolate, don’t move”.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

We change our every day food choices - in order to help, we try to

update, and I don’t want the things that we say to conflict with

those of the school and to create a mess for the child.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

Website:

http://earlysteps.teithe.gr/