Supporting Child Health and Wellbeing: Factors, Effects, and Strategies

Factors that affect child health and well-being
Nutrition lays the foundation of healthy child playing a vital
role in physical, mental, social and behavioral development.
Healthy and safe environments are important for promoting
child well-being through healthy and safe practices by
parents and caregivers.
Healthy lifestyle also contribute to sense of wellbeing in
children as it builds confidence, hygiene and make them
stay fit and active.
Routine sleep or bedtime is also associated with child
health and wellbeing focusing on the quality of sleep
(Marotz 2014).
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
References
References
Bhutta, Z.A. and Black, R.E., 2013. Global maternal, newborn, and child health—so near and yet so
far. New England Journal of Medicine, 369(23), pp.2226-2235.
Black, M.M., Walker, S.P., Fernald, L.C., Andersen, C.T., DiGirolamo, A.M., Lu, C., McCoy, D.C., Fink, G.,
Shawar, Y.R., Shiffman, J. and Devercelli, A.E., 2017. Early childhood development coming of age:
science through the life course. The Lancet, 389(10064), pp.77-90.
Emerson, N.D., Distelberg, B., Morrell, H.E., Williams-Reade, J., Tapanes, D. and Montgomery, S., 2016.
Quality of life and school absenteeism in children with chronic illness. The Journal of School
Nursing, 32(4), pp.258-266.
Isaacs, D., 2016. Poverty and child health. Journal of paediatrics and child health, 52(12), pp.1119-
1119.
Kimberlin, D.W., Brady, M.T., Jackson, M.A. and Long, S.S., 2015. Red Book, (2015): 2015 Report of the
Committee on Infectious Diseases. American academy of pediatrics.
Marotz, L.R., 2014. Health, safety, and nutrition for the young child. Nelson Education.
Oostdam, R. and Hooge, E., 2013. Making the difference with active parenting; forming educational
partnerships between parents and schools. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28(2),
pp.337-351.
Tayler, C., Ishimine, K., Cloney, D., Cleveland, G. and Thorpe, K., 2013. The quality of early childhood
education and care services in Australia. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 38(2), p.13.
Early Childhood Australia
Child health is defined as physical,
social, mental, emotional and
intellectual well-being where there is
absence of disease or infirmity (Black et
al. 2017).
Quality Area 2 in National Quality
Standard
Child well-being is defined as
understanding and addressing of child
needs with proper functioning in
physical, social, behavioral and
cognitive areas presenting information
on protective factors promoting well-
being and overall quality of life (Tayler
et al. 2013).Self-care in
children
Activity of
Everyday
Living (AEL)
Brushing teeth
could be used
as a way to
support child
self-care in the
environment.
Object
manipulation is
involved in
brushing as
children learn
the ability to
manipulate tools
skillfully where
they learn to
hold brush and
coordinate
movement in
brushing.
Poor health and
wellbeing
poverty
Poor living
conditions
No access to
opportunities
Poor quality of life
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Supporting child health and wellbeing
Practitioners share information on child health with parents and
carers emphasizing on learning needs, illness and immunization,
healthy eating and safe environment.
Early child educators work in partnership with parents in providing
them attainable standards of physical and mental health while
supporting them to make safe and healthy choices (Oostdam and
Hooge 2013).
Safe environment is provided through timely immunization so that
common childhood illnesses can be prevented promoting their
learning and development.
Effects of poor health and wellbeing on young children
Children belonging to low socio-economic status families
are at greater risk for negative outcomes
developmental delays, poor academic achievement,
neglect, socioemotional problems and physical health
issues.
Poor living conditions also contribute to childhood illnesses
like coughs, chickenpox, ear infections, diarrhea, mumps
and measles.
Poor living condition has an impact on PILES and it
increases the rate of school absenteeism for children. This
would lead to poor educational success and poor lifetime
health (Emerson et al. 2016).
Supporting child health and wellbeingSupporting child health and wellbeingSupporting child health and wellbeingSupporting child health and wellbeingSupporting child health and wellbeing
References