Robert Black
Chile
School of Medicine, MD program >>View Final Report
Childhood obesity is now recognized as a global health issue. In Chile, it is suspected that nutritional assistance programs have been contributing to the rise in obesity among children from low income families. As a result, in 2001, the National Council Nursery Schools Program (JUNJI) reduced the calories provided to the children who attend public nursery schools.
 In this study I am assessing whether children are actually being served the target amounts of calories and nutrients, and measuring actual energy and nutrient intakes of the three meals provided by the JUNJI program among beneficiaries 6 months to 5 years of age in nursery schools in the south of Santiago. I am also approximating energy expenditure during nursery school hours through observations of the children’s activities. This information will be vital to predict what impact further decreasing calories would have on JUNJI children. Ultimately the conclusions drawn from this study will be used to adapt the JUNJI program in an effort to decrease the prevalence of childhood obesity in Chile while taking care not to increase rates of malnutrition.
I am currently in the stage of data collection in the nursery schools in Santiago. It has certainly been a challenging experience coordinating the accurate collection of food from children who are still at an age where they get up from the table and run off to play, food-in-hand, spill their food, and even sneak food off other children’s plates. I have to keep an eye on each child that I am measuring so that I can get the most accurate estimates of their caloric and nutrient intakes. However, at the same time I have learned that research, especially where children are involved, can be unpredictable and protocols have to be somewhat malleable.
 Much of the work I do takes place in the kitchen where the food is prepared for the children. The cooks are a valuable source of information, such as helping to identify which foods are the most popular and which foods are rejected. I have been impressed at the quality of the public nursery school system here in Chile. Considering that Chile continues to be considered a developing country, the availability of this resource to low-income groups is invaluable in terms of laying the foundations of a healthy lifestyle which are often ignored in the home environment. Clearly, there are areas that need to be improved in the system, and I hope that some of the information that I retrieve from this study will be useful in guiding the revision of the nursery school program.
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