LAUSR

Objective Children's eating behaviors are formed early in life making it an optimal time period to promote healthy eating. Therefore, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a new meal pattern for the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) in 2017.There is a gap in the literature regarding CACFP provider's knowledge level of the updated guidelines. This study investigates the nutrition knowledge of CACFP providers after one year of implementing 2017 CACFP meal pattern. Description This is a matched pre-post longitudinal study with a convenience sampling; childcare professionals from CACFP-funded institutions participate in an annual training to maintain their USDA support. At the 2017 annual training, participants were given a “baseline” survey that included 27 knowledge questions. The follow-up survey was administered at the 2018 training. A total of 475 baseline surveys were turned in, and 420 follow-up surveys with 135 matched IDs. Evaluation Descriptive statistics, paired sample t-tests and linear regression analyses were used to determine differences in nutrition knowledge by geographical location, for-profit and non-profit and program settings. Conclusion and Implications The overall percentage of correct answers increased significantly from time one to time two, from 68% to 74% [t (135) = 5.48, P Grant Year 2016