KAPA‘IA — The Farm to Keiki Preschool Program, being demonstrated to Communities Putting Prevention to Work officials earlier in the year, got its roots into the ground Friday at the Lihu‘e Hongwanji Preschool. Child obesity, and just being overweight, is
KAPA‘IA — The Farm to Keiki Preschool Program, being demonstrated to Communities Putting Prevention to Work officials earlier in the year, got its roots into the ground Friday at the Lihu‘e Hongwanji Preschool.
Child obesity, and just being overweight, is a significant health problem in the United States, tripling since 1980 for adolescents and more than doubling for younger children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Combating this trend is one of the missions for the preschool program being administered through the efforts of Tiana Kamen. She manages the Farm to Keiki Preschool program as part of the Kaua‘i School Network program under Malama Kaua‘i.
The Farm to Keiki Preschool program, more commonly labelled F2P, is designed to influence early childhood eating habits and increase the availability of local fresh fruits and vegetables in school meals and snacks, both crucial to maintaining a healthy weight for preschools and preventing childhood obesity, states a program flier.
“This is a pilot program and right now we have 19 preschools, including Head Start,” Kamen said. “There are other schools in Hawai‘i who want to participate, but we’re going to see how the pilot program works before releasing it to other schools.”
She said during the past two weeks, they have visited at least a dozen preschools from Mana to Hanalei and have scheduled visits to the Head Start schools.
Books and instructional materials, made possible through the Kaua‘i County Farm Bureau, the Healthy Hawai‘i Initiative through the state Department of Health, CPPW and Get Fit Kaua‘i were delivered to the Lihu‘e Hongwanji Preschool by Kamen. She noted the materials cover curriculum through December.
“We’ll do an evaluation after December to see where the students are before releasing the January to July curriculum,” she said.
Simply stated, the program involves a pre-test where students are asked about identifying fruits and vegetables, their likes and dislikes as well as which produce they would be likely to try and identifying sources of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Once that base is established, instructors work with the students in the program which features a Hawaiian-grown fruit, or vegetable each month, the instruction spanning the garden where students can plant seeds, field trips to farms, restaurants or agricultural institutions to learn more about the featured produce, and cooking the featured item for tasting.
“This program also covers other areas of learning including art where they can create a rainbow of vegetables, colors, counting and even science,” Kamen said.
Going outside the classroom, Kamen said there is a parent component with workshops in gardening and healthy snacks and nutrition.
“One of the best things about this program is each participating school committed to a Wellness Policy which it did not have, previously,” Kamen said.
Under the Wellness Policy, the school offers a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks and meals, with at least one being offered each day; does not allow sugar-sweetened beverages or diet soda at school; provides drinking water throughout the day and at all meal times; serves only low fat, or no fat milk for children over two years old; limits television to one to two hours of educational programs for children over two years old; offers 60 minutes of physical education each day, preferring outside play; offers only healthy snacks and meals with restrictions on soda, candy, chips or otherwise indicated unhealthy foods; encourages a healthy party policy while providing nutrition and gardening education.
For more information, contact Kamen at tiana@malamakauai.org or Laura Kawamura at 274-3473 or ljk@hawaii.edu.
