A Pilot Intervention Designed to Address Behavioral Factors That Place Overweight/Obese Young Children at Risk for Later-Life Obesity

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) was to intervene with parents of overweight/obese 4- to 8-year-old children to improve child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Parent-child dyads ( N = 60) were randomly assigned to treatment or comparison conditions. Parents attended four intervention sessions at their child's primary health care office over 3 months. Child behaviors were assessed at 0, 3, 6, and 12 months post intervention. Parental beliefs in their skills/abilities increased in the experimental group parents, but there was no statistical difference between groups at any time. Child externalizing behaviors significantly decreased from baseline to postintervention for both groups ( F = 3.26, p = .020). Post hoc model testing suggests that this change was more pronounced in the intervention group ( F = 0.56, p = .692). Child somatic symptoms significantly decreased over time ( F = 4.55, p = .004), and there were group differences in child depressive behaviors ( F = 6.19, p = .020). These findings suggest that a parent-focused intervention program demonstrated positive preliminary effects on children's behaviors.

Association of Pediatric Obesity Treatment, Including a Dietary Component, With Change in Depression and Anxiety

“…Study characteristics are in eTable 2 in the Supplement. Included study designs were noncontrolled trials in 21 studies, 16 RCTs, [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] 6 non-RCTs, [56][57][58][59][60][61] and 1 retrospective medical record review. 62 Twenty studies were conducted in the United States, 18,19,[26][27][28][29][30][31]34,[36][37][38]40,44,[46][47][48]50,51,53,54 6 in the United Kingdom, 21,33,42,55,57,62 3 each in Canada 45, 58,60 and Brazil, 20,32,61 2 each in Australia …”

“…62 Twenty studies were conducted in the United States, 18,19,[26][27][28][29][30][31]34,[36][37][38]40,44,[46][47][48]50,51,53,54 6 in the United Kingdom, 21,33,42,55,57,62 3 each in Canada 45, 58,60 and Brazil, 20,32,61 2 each in Australia 41,56 and Belgium, 24,39 with the remaining studies conducted in Germany, 35 Iceland, 25 Iran, 52 Israel, 22 Korea, 59 Norway, 43 Portugal, 23 and Switzerland. 49 Studies were conducted in community settings, 19,25,28,30,31,33,41,43,45,46,48,…”

Intervention Empowerment of Families in Preventing and Controlling Overweight and Obesity in Children: A Systematic Review

“…Quasi-experimental studies are considered more real because it shows the effectiveness of the real world and the intervention that is being implemented. 17 The samples used in this study were parents, children and health workers with a total number of 1335. Furthermore, the proportion of the sample in the intervention group was slightly more than the control group.…”

“…The method of giving intervention was carried out with various health education programs, which include health education intervention, educational program, educational intervention, home based management, and participative health education, 4 , 17-19 Furthermore, the components of the intervention were training activities, courses, and teaching practices. This Health Education approach was very important.…”

Addressing a Major Health Problem From an Array of Perspectives

“…The second study (Polfuss, Simpson, Greenley, Zhang, & Sawin, 2017) focuses on parents of children who were diagnosed with autism, spina befida, or Down's Syndrome. Small, Thacker, Aldrich, Bonds-McClain, and Melnyk (2017) report on a pilot study with parent-child dyads among children ages 4 to 8 years who were overweight or obese. The fifth article (Choo, Kim, & Park, 2017) targeting childen uses geographc information systems to examine the neighborhood and its associations with health behaviors and obesity status.…”