To date, approaches that show the most promise for preventing and/or reversing the course of childhood obesity involve the delivery of intensive lifestyle interventions within a family-based context, emphasizing the necessity of parental involvement and making changes in family routines and the home environment. Considering that the current demand for pediatric weight management programs far exceed availability, as well as the high attrition rates observed in such programs, there is a great need for more accessible and efficient means of delivering these interventions to reduce the burden of childhood obesity. The goal of this study is to understand whether text messaging and social media platforms can be leveraged to address the important issue of childhood obesity by engaging parent/guardians in one of these strategies, and whether these strategies produce similar outcomes. No existing study has compared these strategies head-to-head, and the investigators believe that this project will be instrumental in understanding the determinants of success in these strategies and allow us to collect sufficient intelligence to be able to deploy these meaningfully to patients as part of usual care.
The goal of this pilot study is to evaluate and compare the feasibility and effectiveness of two platforms, text messaging and Facebook, for delivering an evidence-based, family-centric childhood obesity intervention to parent/guardians of children between the ages of 3-6 with a BMI of 90th percentile and above. The investigators hypothesize that the use of both platforms for delivering a childhood obesity intervention will help establish healthier family routines and be equally engaging and accepted by parent/guardians and children. The primary aim of this study is to assess the effect of the intervention on: * Parent/guardian knowledge of healthy family routines (i.e., nutrition, frequency of family meals, child's screen time, bedtime routines, physical activity, and sleep hours) and of parenting strategies that are preventive of child overweight and obesity * Parent/guardian readiness, confidence, and perceived self-efficacy to make and maintain changes in family routines known to be associated with healthy weight outcomes The secondary aims of the study are to assess the effect of the intervention on: * The adoption of healthy family routines and parenting strategies that are preventive of child overweight and obesity * Daily objective physical activity in the index child by accelerometry (using a physical activity tracking device) * Index children's BMI percentile, using data collected during regular clinic visits from the electronic medical record * To assess the level of engagement with the intervention, measured via daily activity tracker wear by the index child, parent/guardian views of Facebook posts or responses to 2-way text messages
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
48
The Fitbit Zip is a wireless physical activity monitor that will be worn by the index child during waking hours, and will be used to assess daily active time for the duration of the study.
Educational dimensions include nutrition, frequency of family meals, child's screen time, bedtime routines, physical activity, and sleep hours.
Quincy Pediatric Associates
Quincy, Massachusetts, United States
Parent/Guardian Knowledge of Healthy Family Routines and of Parenting Strategies That Are Preventive of Child Overweight and Obesity
We designed a scale for use in this study containing 8 questions on each of the family routines that we assessed (i.e., nutrition, frequency of family meals, child's screen time, bedtime routines, physical activity, and sleep hours). Each of the eight questions were assigned one point value. The scale was summative such that the lowest possible score was 0 and highest possible score was 8, from adding up scores to all eight questions. Higher scores indicated a better outcome.
Time frame: 90 days
Change in Sleep
Baseline to 90-days post-intervention change in child sleep duration (hours per day)
Time frame: 90 days
Change in Child Screen Time Exposure
Baseline to 90-days post-intervention change in child screen time exposure (hours per day)
Time frame: 90 days
Change in Sugar Sweetened Beverage Intake
Baseline to 90-days post-intervention change in child sugar sweetened beverage intake (servings per day)
Time frame: 90 days
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