More than half of all children in the U.S. aged 3 to 6 years are enrolled in childcare centers. In
Maine, there are over 2,000 licensed centers. Maine received funds from the federal department of health and human servicesââ¬â¢ Communities Putting Prevention to Work to promote the adoption of Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC), an evidenced-based program for the childcare setting. The Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-assessment Child Care (NAP SACC) is an evidence-based program well-aligned with the IOM Paper. NAP SACC was created in 2002 by a team of child obesity researchers at UNC Chapel Hill in association with colleagues in the Nutrition Services branch at the North Carolina Division of Public Health. The NAP SACC program consists of a self-assessment instrument, continuing education workshops, collaborative action planning (and an action plan document), technical assistance materials, and an extensive resource manual with copy-ready materials on CDRom. The program and its component parts were developed to help early care and education programs set goals and make improvements to their nutrition and physical activity policies and practices. The intervention was piloted in 2003 and through a pre- and post-analysis of the self-assessment data, was found to be successful. The program is continually updated to encourage the adoption of ââ¬Åbest practices,ââ¬Â such as those laid out by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The Maine Nutrition and Physical Activity Self Assessment for Childcare (NAP SACC) Experience
Sarah Levin Martin
Last date updated on September, 2024