Listening to pre-school children speak about health and health-promoting behaviours:

Objective:As children become increasingly exposed to health information and education, it is important to understand how these messages affect the way children speak about health and health behaviours. Children are social agents and co-constructors of their social worlds. Exploring how pre-school children speak about health and health-promoting behaviours can help explain what children make of health messages and may help facilitate communication between children, parents and educators.Methods:Participants included 163 pre-school children aged 3–5 years attending childcare centres in South-East Queensland, Australia. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore how pre-school children speak about health and health behaviours. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.Results:Participant responses were structured as two categories. The first category was Meaning of Healthy. This category comprised four themes of eat your food (n = 74 of 145, 51%), participating in activities (n = 36, 24%), growing big ...