Early childhood is an important period where the family can support the development and maintenance of healthy eating and active behaviors to prevent or reduce childhood obesity. With this ultimate goal, we designed the Good Start Matters - Parenting program, which aims to engage families in positive parenting practices that support healthy child behaviors, and aim to evaluate the efficacy of this intervention with a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). The Good Start Matters - Parenting program is a 2-month mobile-Health (mHealth) parenting intervention which promote positive parenting (primary outcome) and support children's healthy nutrition, physical activity, and decrease screen-time (secondary outcomes).
Early childhood is an important learning period where dietary, physical activity and sedentary habits are forming, and developing unhealthy habits will set children up for obesity and other health risks later in life. Moreover, during early childhood the familial environment plays a key role in shaping children's behaviors through their parenting practices, which altogether illustrate the potential of the early years as a developmental period with opportunities for obesity prevention. This Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) evaluates the efficacy of the Good Start Matters - Parenting intervention, a mobile-Health (mHealth) aimed at improving parenting and co-parenting practices and child health behaviors among British Columbian families of preschoolers. Participating families complete measurement tools at baseline and after 10 weeks. Families randomized into the intervention condition receive immediate access to the app, and control families receive access to the app after the completion of the second assessment. We expect that compared to control group families, intervention group families significantly improve their parenting and co-parenting practices and improve child health behaviors after 2 months of app use.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
118
The Good Start Matters - Parenting intervention is a 2-month mobile-Health (mHealth) parenting program that aims to improve parenting practices and child health behaviors among British Columbian families of preschoolers. This intervention uses a familial approach and blends the best practices and evidence to promote positive parenting regarding 3 main areas: nutrition, physical activity, and screen-time; which altogether aim to support the development of healthy habits among young children. The mHealth app releases new material on a weekly basis and participants' engagement with the app takes about 30 minutes per week.
University of British Columbia / BC Children's Hospital Research Institute
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
RECRUITINGChange in Parenting practices (parent outcome)
Questions adapted from the "Food and Physical Activity Item Banks" (Masse et al 2020) to specifically assess parenting practices related to food, physical activity and screen time. The scale ranges from 1-5 in most items, and higher scores indicate greater endorsement of each parenting practice.
Time frame: Two time points (baseline and 10 weeks post intervention)
Change in Co-Parenting practices (parent outcome)
Questions adapted from the "Coparenting Relationship Scale" from Feinberg et al (2012) to measure co-parenting agreement specifically regarding the child eating and movement behaviors. The scale ranges from 1-4 and all items will be coded in the same direction to have greater scores representing greater coparenting agreement.
Time frame: Two time points (baseline and 10 weeks post intervention)
Change in Eating and dietary behaviors (child outcome)
Questions from the "Children´s Eating Behaviors Questionnaire" (CEBQ) (Wardle et al, 2001), questions based on "Canada´s Food Guide" recommendations, and questions created for the current study to assess a variety of children´s eating behaviors around food (e.g., fussiness, emotional overeating) and intake of key food markers (e.g., vegetables, fruits, sugary drinks). Specifically for the CEBQ scale, response options range from 1-5, and all items will be recoded in the same direction to have greater scores representing greater frequency of each child behavior.
Time frame: Two time points (baseline and 10 weeks post intervention)
Change in Physical activity (child outcome)
Questions adapted from Burdette et al. (2004) to examine child physical activity through active play and outdoor play. Greater scores indicate greater active play and outdoor play time.
Time frame: Two time points (baseline and 10 weeks post intervention)
Change in Screen time (child outcome)
Questions created for this study to examine children's time in front of screens. Greater scores indicate greater screen time.
Time frame: Two time points (baseline and 10 weeks post intervention)
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