Healthy Parenting

Reducing childhood obesity through re-framing advice to parents 

Project Overview

Year: 2019-2020
Funded by DesignScapes. Partnered with: the city council of Rotterdam, SWK Group, Erasmus MC department of Public Health, CJG Rijnmond, Alsare.
Role: Research, Design Thinking and Prototyping.  

In Rotterdam 1 out of 4 (!) children are overweight. Furthermore, according to the Dutch National Food Consumption Survey (by RIVM) only 19% of the Dutch 2-year-olds eat enough vegetables. From 1 year old, children join in family dinners and their eating behaviors are taking form over the years that follow. An analysis of existing interventions for healthier lifestyles revealed that of the many interventions on offer in Rotterdam, there are little to none which will help parents with children aged 1 - 4. Parents lack practical support and advice when it comes to establishing healthy eating practices for their children. The advice that is on offer often feels stigmatizing and paternalistic – disconnected from the lived-reality of parents at meal times, that their children are unwilling to eat. The SUPER-eater gift set was developed to help them solve this problem. It contains practical tools like a plate, recipes and a birthday card, which all embody simple and healthy messages; Not prescribing what is healthy or good, but rather stimulating healthy eating practices in a low-key way. Furthermore, the SUPER eater set is received as a gift for the parent – thereby acknowledging their parenting effort and gifting them with advice on ‘easy eaters’. 

Action & Impact

We re-framed parenting advice by shifting the focus from ‘healthy eating’ to ‘easy eating’, something all parents strive for. We designed the SUPER-eater gift set which focuses on parents of young children (1 year old) to help them create a SUPER eater out of their child. It was co-created with 21 mothers and 3 experts of behavior and public health. The gift set translates and embodies parenting practices in practical and visual tools so that they can be put to practice.  
A short impact study showed possible positive behavior change in parents who received the gift set. Furthermore, the gift set appeals to target groups that previously could not be reached with messages about healthy living. Back stage this project connected diverse organizations around this topic and opened up perspectives for helping solve this problem together (cross-organization & multi-stakeholder). 

Contact person: Annet Bruil

Impact in numbers:
#organizations partnered with: 11
#professionals impacted: 17
#lives directly impacted: 35

Through our co-creation process, we have co-created and reflected on healthy eating practices with 24 mothers. Mothers took part in an educational program on healthy eating practices, created their own personal plates and helped co-create the intervention. Furthermore, 11 families received a prototype of the SUPER-Eater gift set and used it for at least 1 month within their families.  
 
At the moment, we are researching how to further co-develop the business- and –collaboration model around this intervention.