Teens consume more added sugar than any other age group. Too much added sugar is associated with poor diet quality, obesity risk, and negative cardiometabolic outcomes. Behavioral interventions to improve dietary intake are needed, but are currently lacking for this age group. This study aims to test how feasible, acceptable, and effective a 12-week contextually-tailored health coaching program, called Sip \& Snack Better (SSB), is in reducing added sugar in teens, compared to a technology-only comparison. It will provide important information on how to improve dietary intake and reduce added sugar in teens. Additionally, measuring diet is very challenging in teens, so this study will also test the use of an objective biomarker (called the carbon isotope ratio (CIR)) as a measure of added sugar intake before, during, and after the 12-week study.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
70
Participants (teens 12-16 years) and their parent or legal guardian will participate in a 12-week health coaching intervention to reduce added sugar intake. Parents and teens will participate in 6 health coaching sessions (in weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12; 30-45 minutes, online via Zoom). Teens will participate in four in-person groups sessions (in weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8) and receive text-messages to reinforce intervention content.
Participants (teens 12-16 years) and their parent or legal guardian will participate in a 12-week technology-only comparison arm. Parents and teens will receive information about added sugar intake and healthy eating once via email or text message (based on preference) in weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12. Teens will receive informational text messages 3 times per week .
Center for Obesity Research and Education
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
RECRUITINGChanges in Added Sugar Intake
Change in added sugar intake will be assessed using the carbon isotope ratio (CIR) as a objective measure of added sugar intake via breath, blood, and hair samples taken at baseline and post-intervention. Intent-to-treat analyses will be conducted using linear regression models to examine changes in CIR between intervention and control participants. A lower (i.e., more negative) CIR value indicates lower added sugar intake.
Time frame: Baseline to 12-weeks
Intervention Feasibility
Feasibility will be assessed by session attendance (\>75%) and retention (\>80%) over the 12-week study.
Time frame: Baseline to 12-weeks
Intervention Acceptability
Participants will report acceptability (\>80% rating of 4 or 5 on Likert scale questions) on a post-intervention acceptability questionnaire
Time frame: Baseline to 12-weeks
Changes in Diet Quality
Changes in diet quality will be assessed via Healthy Eating Index (HEI) derived from three 24-hour dietary recalls at baseline and post-intervention. HEI is scored on a scale from 0 to 100 with higher scores indicating higher diet quality.
Time frame: Baseline to 12-weeks
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