Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
My TIME to Eat Healthy and Move More (My TIME) is a direct education intervention designed to actively engage parents and children in a co-learning process as they experience how to make healthy food choices and become more physically active. Instead of telling parents what is best for their family, My TIME offers hands-on activities to draw on their unique experiences.This facilitates an educational opportunity that encourages the learners to reflect, share, and ultimately identify goals and actions to create a healthier family. T. I. M. E. symbolizes the four core principles of the program: Together, Inspire, Motivate, and Empower. Over the course of a month, the parent and child work together with the home visitor to learn practical tips to eat healthily and move more. Taste-testing activities are used to inspire healthy eating. Simple ideas promoting daily exercise are offered to motivate parents and children to move more. Lastly, My TIME empowers families to stay connected to the goals and opportunities that they identified to improve the health of their family.
- Evaluated
My TIME was piloted with Head Start programs in MN over a 3-year time span. Demographics of participants were collected. Head Start home-based teachers provided feedback on each unit through a Qualtrics survey. The teachers documented on-going feedback from parents. Post evaluations were collected from SNAP-Ed Educators who provided technical assistance. Minnesota Valley Action Council’s Head Start Health Services Advisory Committee was given quarterly updates and provided feedback during the pilot phase. This committee included Head Start parents and staff, health and human services professionals, and other community volunteers who are representative of the racial and ethnic groups served by the local Head Start program. Technical assistance was provided to ensure the fidelity of the curriculum and provide teacher support. My TIME was revised three times based on this data.
Pilot analysis results showed that all fruit and vegetable consumption variables showed statistically significant positive changes. After the intervention, mean daily fruit consumption increased 0.5 servings/day (3.5 more fruit servings/week). For vegetable consumption, it was 0.3 servings/day (2.4 servings more/week). Before the intervention, 66% of participants ate more than one kind of fruit in a day. After the intervention, 93% of participants indicated they ate more than one kind of fruit in a day. Before the intervention, 77% of participants responded they ate more than one kind of vegetable and after the intervention, 86% of participants responded that they ate more than one vegetable in a day. Among physical activity measures, the ‘Physically Active’ time showed a statistically significant difference.
*SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States is a compilation of interventions. The toolkit was developed by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, The Association of SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNA), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Training and Research Translation (Center TRT), and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the USDA. It is designed and updated to help state SNAP-Ed administrative and implementing agencies identify evidence-based obesity prevention programs and policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies and interventions to include in their SNAP-Ed plans.