A Moment with Dr. Moore

Practicing What You Preach: Health and Wellness
in Head Start

The Council’s Early Educators Leadership Conference, from which I came back just a few days ago, put a spotlight on wellness and health. So does Head Start, and we should be aware of how it helps children have healthier lives as we mark Head Start Awareness Month. Head Start ensures children have access to health insurance, developmental screenings, well-child visits, medical and dental services, along with healthy meals. And the data speaks for just how much the program does to help children thrive. According to the latest count this year, Head Start conducted 4,566,696 home visits and served 11,767 pregnant women. It provided 40,574 children with care for chronic conditions, gave preventative dental care to 306,414 children and ensured 490,880 children were up to date with diagnostic and treatment screenings.

Health care professionals play a big role in keeping Head Start children well, but their success depends on support from Head Start teachers. Like all teachers, they are role models, and the classroom is a perfect place to promote healthy behaviors to children. Teachers who eat nutritious meals are more prepared to show children how to eat right. Teachers who are active tend to conduct more movement-based activities in the classroom and are more equipped to pass on the value of exercise to young learners.

These are good habits that can last a lifetime, and teachers are eager to do their share to help children be well, according to a recent study of Head Start teachers in North Carolina. “I want the children to be healthy, and they can be healthy by doing exercise and eating right,” one teacher said. Granted, “I don’t know what the children are doing at home, but I do my part at school.” So did another teacher who enjoyed seeing the children enjoy healthy food. “A lot of them like apples; a lot of them like carrots; a lot of them like broccoli,” she said. “And seeing them eating good stuff instead of candy and junk food really motivates me,” as it did yet another teacher. “I have to practice what I preach,” she said, “so I have to try some foods I don’t like, before I try to get the children to eat them.”

And other Head Start teachers in North Carolina wanted to make better health choices because they saw the link between their personal and professional experiences with exercise and proper eating. But making positive changes was hard, as they pointed out. Some teachers were too tired from chasing children all day to exercise on their own. The teachers also described how their busy schedules curtailed their time to prepare food at home and sit down for family meals, leading to reliance on fast food. And some teachers were as poor as the Head Start families they served, which made it hard to afford the child care that would allow them to exercise after work and buy fresh veggies and fruit. “Money for purchasing healthier food has been my barrier because it’s so expensive,” one teacher said. “I try to have healthy stuff at home, but there’s four of us and we have to make sure we have something to eat for the rest of the month.”

I can empathize with this teacher because I faced the same dilemma as a young Head Start teacher making a meager wage. When I was in the classroom, we might serve a wonderful snack with apples, bananas and raisins. So, I was exposing the children to a healthy way of eating. Then I would give the recipe for the snack to the family, but they couldn’t afford the ingredients—and neither could I. Like many Head Start teachers, I was no better off financially than the families I served, so there was a gap between the ideal and the reality of a teacher’s role in modeling good health.

The Office of Head Start (OHS) has urged programs to close the gap and support the wellness of their staff. “Each staff person across the Head Start workforce has the immense responsibility of performing a job that supports young children’s early learning, health, mental health and family well-being,” said a recent memorandum from OHS. “Staff wellness is vital to child well-being. It is also a critical component in the ability to address the diverse and individualized needs of Head Start children and families. So, Head Start programs are strongly encouraged to create a working environment for staff that transmits a culture of wellness. This starts with program leaders modeling and promoting staff well-being and infusing this culture throughout all program services and interactions on a regular basis”—guidance that inspired a Head Start program in San Diego, California.

A few years ago, Neighborhood House Association (NHA) received a grant to promote child health and decided to use the funding to develop a staff wellness program. NHA’s goal was to improve the lifestyles of the children they served by supporting healthy lifestyles for their staff. NHA began with three lunch-time exercise classes per week in a gym next door to a local school. They also developed food logs for staff to track their diet and promoted the new wellness program through social media, school announcements, newsletters and informational meetings. As attendance in the program rose, NHA added more classes, leading to concrete results at the end of the year. Most participants in the program lost two to four percent of their body fat and had a better self-image. They also incorporated more physical activity into classroom routines and provided more information on healthy habits to the families they served.

Healthy teachers promote a healthy atmosphere at school, a conviction that led American University researchers to partner with 12 Head Start programs in Washington, DC, on an 18-month project to foster a culture of health. Each month, the researchers asked Head Start staff to focus on a different aspect of health by taking part in a related challenge. A “rethink your drink” challenge, for example, raised awareness of the importance of consuming more water and cutting back on sugary drinks. There was also a “pedometer challenge” to see who could take the most steps each day and a “get your zzz’s” challenge to underscore the value of a good night’s sleep.

The challenges led to a marked change in attitudes toward wellness, as the researchers pointed out. “A survey conducted at the end of the program showed that most of the participants felt they had changed their behaviors. Moreover, personal accounts from the Head Start educators revealed that they had more appreciation for the importance of their wellness and health”—and this makes an impact on children, the researchers pointed out. “For eight to ten hours a day, the educators are the primary caregivers for the children. To ensure the health of the infants and toddlers in their care, and to truly support the whole child, it is essential that we take care of the whole educator as well.”

One big way to help would be to increase the wages of our Head Start staff. Wellness programs might help educators reduce their waistlines, but there are still many times when they must tighten their belts and think twice about buying healthy foods and getting the child care they need to work out at the end of the day. Sure, it’s nice when children bring teachers an apple as a token of appreciation. But a nicer way for us to show appreciation would be to help teachers afford the apples, bananas and raisins to make that healthy snack I still recall from my Head Start days. My experience there has made me keenly aware of the roadblocks our Head Start teachers face as they try to model healthy habits in the classroom. And I’m convinced that we, too, should take on a challenge. As early childhood leaders, we must make our teachers’ wellness a priority so they can do the most to help children be well, too. In addition, we must speak out on their behalf for healthy pay hikes in the early learning field. Our early childhood teachers need the means to practice what they preach.