NAP SACC announcement!

We are pleased to announce that the NAP SACC Consultant training and all materials are available on-line. Please go to "NAP SACC updates" for detailed instructions

Welcome to NAP SACC!

Welcome to the NAP SACC website. In this website, you will find information about NAP SACC, the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self Assessment for Child Care program.

Why is NAP SACC Necessary?

Recent reports indicate that more than 26% of children, between the ages of 2 and 5, are classified as either at risk for overweight or overweight. Since eating and physical activity behaviors and patterns are established early in childhood and tend to track into adulthood, early intervention could help prevent the problem of overweight in young children. Approximately 74% of all children ages three to six years are in some form of non-parental care and 56% are in a center-based child care program. These children may consume 50% to 100% of their Recommended Dietary Allowances while at a child care facility, which contributes a significant number of calories and essential nutrients to their diet. Only a limited number of research studies have been conducted on the role of child care settings in the development of healthy weight behaviors in young children.

What is the NAP SACC Intervention?

The Nutrition and Physical Activity Self Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC) is an intervention in child care centers aimed at improving nutrition and physical activity environment, policies and practices through self-assessment and targeted technical assistance. Goals of the program are to improve nutritional quality of food served, amount and quality of physical activity, staff-child interactions, and center nutrition and physical activity policy. The main steps of the intervention include:

1. Self-Assessment: The child care facility director, together with key center staff complete the NAP SACC self-assessment tool. This tool assesses the center on 15 key areas in nutrition and physical activity with response options ranging from minimal to best practice.

2. Action Planning: Based on self-assessment answers, facilities chose 3 to 4 areas for improvement and map out an action plan for making these improvements with guidance and support from the NAP SACC Consultant

3. Workshop Delivery: The NAP SACC Consultant delivers 4 ready-use-workshops to the facility. These workshops include: 1) Childhood Overweight, 2) Nutrition for Children, 3) Physical Activity for Children, and 4) Personal Health and Wellness for Staff

4. Targeted technical assistance: NAP SACC Consultants maintain regular contact with the facility to provide support and guidance in making their improvements.

5. Evaluate, Revise, and Repeat: The NAP SACC self-assessment instrument is completed a second time to see where improvement have or haven't been made. At this time Action Plans are revised to include new goals and objectives and technical assistance continues.

What are the NAP SACC Projects?

3 NAP SACC projects have been completed at the University of North Carolina.

NAP SACC Evaluation: This is a formal evaluation of the NAP SACC intervention using an researcher-administered tool called the EPAO to measure the nutrition and physical activity environment of the child care centers. Ninety-six child care centers (58 intervention, 38 control) across North Carolina participated in this study which ended August 2006.

This project is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through an American Schools of Public Health Cooperative Agreement and by the State of North Carolina’s Division of Public Health.

NAP SACC Intensive: This project modified the original 6-month intervention to a 12-month intervention with the aim of measuring a change in child BMI (Body Mass Index). Two child care centers in one county in North Carolina received a 12-month intervention to improve their dietary and physical activity environment for healthy weight. Complete study measures were compared to 2 comparison centers from the same county who receive a delayed NAP SACC intervention (provided after follow-up measures are collected). This study ended in Sept 2007.

This project is funded by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Special Interest Project grant, SIP 16-05.

NAP SACC Family: This study was designed to observe the effects of NAP SACC coupled with a home-based family intervention (NAP SACC Family) in modifying the physical activity and nutrition behaviors of 3-5 year old preschool children, when compared to NAP SACC alone (NAP SACC only) or a comparison condition. Eighteen child care centers from two counties in North Carolina were randomly assigned to one of three study conditions. The comparison condition received a delayed NAP SACC intervention (intervention provided after follow-up measures were collected). This study ended in Aug 2007.

This project was funded by the National Institutes of Health NIDDK, grant #1R21DK73044-01.