‘360 degree marketing’ is the term given to the media environment that sees young children exposed to multiple forms of advertising for high calorie foods and consumable toys, clothing and products [1]. This term describes current marketing communication strategies through which children are targeted via multiple media, including radio, TV and social media, food packaging, point of sale advertising, direct mail, and blanket coverage of prime sites in public spaces. Traditionally, the impact of ‘360 degree marketing’ on young children is studied in diverse fields of research. For example, obesity research considers the influence of advertising on children’s food choices and the role of media viewing on children’s levels of physical activity [2, 3]. Media research canvasses the types of media young children consume, the range of technologies they use to watch media, and the number of hours they typically spend engaged with media [4]. Environmental education examines the extent to which children’s digitally mediated experiences influence the quality of children’s active outdoor play, affinity with nature and children’s consciousness of the sustainability consequences associated with their clothing and toy preferences [5]. Meanwhile in early childhood education and early primary/elementary school settings, educators increasingly bemoan the extent to which ‘360 degree marketing’ influences young children’s play, the type of foods they bring to their centres and the range of clothing and toys in which they are interested [6].

An important issue for educators attempting to respond to this problem is the lack of research conducted from an integrated perspective into the best way to respond to young children’s exposure to saturation marketing via the early childhood curriculum. An integrated systems approach is needed to incorporate these important aspects, which are influencing children’s education and health and well-being. Encouraging children to take a holistic approach and enabling them to understand the consequences of their actions provides them with skills in the future to best handle unanticipated consequences.

Current contexts for children’s development in contemporary industrialised societies have been described by some social commenters as ‘toxic’ [7] promoting the phenomena of ‘nature-deficit’ [8] and ‘ecological illiteracy’ [9] among young children. These beliefs stem from the rapid adoption of digital technologies in society more broadly [10], and are aligned with advances in marketing techniques to young children that interface children’s affective engagement with popular culture characters with their engagements with digital media [11]. Young children are now commonly described as using a broad range of technologies to access and watch digital media that both promote particular characters [12], and expose children to advertising for high calorie foods, toys and clothing that have significant ‘cradle to grave’ impact on the environment [6, 13, 14].

In addition, research shows that increased digital media viewing is associated with reduced physical activity and levels of active play [15]. The combination of increased dietary intake of high calorie foods and reduced active play has had a profound impact on children’s weight gain across Australia, and other developed countries. Obesity in early childhood is currently recognised as a significant concern and one that is associated with children’s self-esteem placing them at later risk of depression [16]. Meanwhile, education for sustainability has become increasingly important for young children [17, 18]. This has involved encouraging children to participate in green activities, such as gardening and composting food [19]. However, a more critical perspective in which children are encouraged to think about the environmental consequences of their consumer behaviour in light of their food and toy choices is yet to feature in early childhood education [12].

Sociocultural accounts of children’s learning and development promote strong connections between children’s home and community experiences and the provision of learning activities in early childhood education. This perspective is recognised in the notion of ‘funds of knowledge’ [20], where it is argued that curricula should be derived from children’s home and family interests and developed by educators as contextual responses to children’s cultural experiences [21]. This means that curricula driven by children, educators and families are recognised in early childhood education as more likely to achieve learning outcomes than imposed interventions. In the past, obesity prevention research directed towards young children has neglected to account for this perspective on teaching and learning and has been directed by the researchers and hence the research program instead [22]. We have developed a pedagogical communication strategy, using a ‘funds of knowledge’ perspective that acknowledges children’s likely engagement with digital media as a form of cultural experience; the strategy was developed in close consultation with children, families, and educators. Utilising the play experiences children have in their homes and communities are explored in the early childhood classroom. Educators may have further exposure to educational opportunities by asking children why they like to play with specific characters. A popular character for preschool children currently is Ben 10™; children are exposed to Ben 10™ through various digital mediums, which are then reinforced through marketing of Ben 10™ products such as clothes, toys and food. Consequently, the strategy is designed to enable educators to use their understandings of children’s play interests (such as wanting to play Ben10™) as the basis of the curriculum interventions.

The design focus on identifying children’s knowledge about healthy eating, active play, and sustainability, therefore, rests on a conceptual framework that strongly aligns with existing teaching and learning processes in early childhood education.

In early childhood education, the release of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) in 2009 [23] saw a focus on children’s wellbeing in terms of healthy eating and some awareness of environmental education in terms of children’s engagement with the natural world included in the early childhood curriculum. However, an integrated approach towards helping young children respond to the significant pressures of ‘360 degree marketing’ [1] on their food choices, levels of active play, and sustainability consciousness via the early childhood curriculum is lacking. The present study takes a targeted approach to the Ben10™ problem by providing educators with a pedagogical communication strategy for integrating healthy eating, active play, and sustainability consciousness in the early childhood curriculum. Because the pedagogical communication strategy is aligned with the Australian EYLF educators are able to use it in order to develop curriculum interventions that integrate obesity prevention, digital media and sustainability education experiences for young children; this is in direct contrast to previous approaches to health and sustainability education in early childhood, which has tended to focus on these issues separately. In addition, our proposed research accords with the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education that requires teachers to provide opportunities for children and adolescents to adopt lifelong healthy, active living strategies that empower them to enhance their own and others’ health and wellbeing in varied and changing contexts [24]. Hence, the overall goal of the current study is to conduct a cluster randomised trial to evaluate the efficacy of the curriculum interventions that educators design when using the pedagogical communication strategy on children’s knowledge about healthy eating, active play and the sustainability consequences of their toy food and toy selections.

The preschool period has been identified as a significant period for children’s learning about healthy eating, active play and sustainability [38–40]. The curriculum interventions designed by teachers during this project will be context-driven and specific to the teaching and learning practices associated with early childhood education. This is critical because it aligns with a sociocultural informed perspective on early childhood education that promotes drawing on children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ [20] as basis for curriculum provision [21]. Evaluating the efficacy of these curriculum interventions will enable us to determine the teaching and learning processes that impact children’s knowledge about healthy eating, active play, and sustainability. These processes represent the outcomes that will advance the knowledge base because, to date, there is little to no description in pre-service and in-service teacher education of how to approach the development of integrated curriculum in the early years in terms of children’s healthy eating, active play, and sustainability consciousness. The identified processes and the curriculum interventions designed by teachers will therefore provide clear examples of how early childhood curriculum can in fact be responsive rather than reactive to the pressures of 360 degree marketing on young children’s healthy eating, active play and sustainability consciousness [6]. Accordingly, the project outcomes represent a response to research describing the significance of the early childhood period for young children’s learning about healthy eating, active play and sustainability.