Maziah Ahmad Marzuki
National University of Malaysia, Malaysia
Title: The effectiveness of ‘child-friendly’ approaches on educating health-related behaviour for children
Biography
Biography: Maziah Ahmad Marzuki
Abstract
This paper reports some of the findings related to obesity prevention programs that are 'child-friendly' in educating healthy lifestyle among young children. 'Child-friendly' refers to approaches designed in learning and activities that are compatible, liked and creates fun to children during the process of classroom learning. The program involved 40 children aged 3-6 years for 32 weeks in a kindergarten by using the approaches of 'child-friendly', while their parents reported the difference on health behaviors practiced by their children before and after participating in the program. The data obtained from photos and parents' report that were sent by parents through 'Facebook' Maziah's MyObes were analyzed inductively and coded using ATLAS.ti version 7.0. The study found the applicability of 'child-friendly' approaches contributed to the positive health practice behaviors of children which was 80% eat healthy and balanced diet and 32.5% do healthy physical activities, thus this proves the approach of 'child-friendly' to be the best approach in educating children about healthy lifestyle practices.