Text Messaging Based Obesity Prevention Program for Parents of Pre-Adolescent African American Girls

Abstract

African American girls are at a greater risk of obesity than their nonminority peers. Parents have the primary control over the home environment and play an important role in the child obesity prevention. Obesity prevention programs to help parents develop an obesity-preventive home environment are needed. The purpose of this study was to collect formative research from parents of 8–10-year old African American girls about perceptions, expectations, and content for a text messaging based program. Mothers (n = 30) participated in surveys and interviews to inform message development and content. A professional expert panel (n = 10) reviewed draft text messages via a survey. All the mothers reported owning a cellphone with an unlimited texting plan, and they used their cellphones for texting (90.0%) and accessing the Internet (100.0%). The majority were interested in receiving text messages about healthy eating and physical activity (86.7%). Interviews confirmed survey findings. One hundred and seven text messages promoting an obesity-preventive home environment were developed. The expert panel and parents reported positive reactions to draft text messages. This research provides evidence that mobile health (mHealth) interventions appeal to parents of African American girls and they have ready access to the technology with which to support this approach.

Family TXT: Feasibility and Acceptability of a mHealth Obesity Prevention Program for Parents of Pre-Adolescent African American Girls

“…Furthermore, the acceptance of the link content and format by mothers in the pilot study confirms the feedback of mothers in the formative study [ 47 ]. Mothers reported they liked the links and would click on the links in the formative phase, and our current sample reported liking and clicking on the links.…”

“…This is similar to findings by previous studies. The comments on the text messages as informative, helpful and good reminders confirm feedback provided by mothers in the formative phase of the study [ 47 ]. A study by Downing et al found that parents were positive about the text messages [ 40 ].…”

“…For a more detailed description of intervention development and content, please refer to the paper reporting this work [ 47 ].…”

Development of a mobile phone app to maintain physical activity in African American men: MobileMen

“…It is especially appealing when targeting African Americans because recent estimates show that 94% of African American adults own a mobile phone (11), 72% own a smartphone (11), and nearly 70% utilize mobile phones to access health information (12). African Americans view mHealth interventions favorably (13)(14)(15)(16)(17), and mHealth interventions have been shown to be effective when delivered to African American populations (14,15,(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

A Church-Based Weight Loss Intervention in African American Adults using Text Messages (LEAN Study): Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Recent estimates have shown that 94% of African American adults own a mobile phone [ 17 ], 72% own a smartphone [ 17 ], and nearly 70% utilize mobile phones to access health information [ 18 ]. Short message service (SMS) text messaging is one form of mHealth, and African American adults report that SMS text messaging is an appropriate form of intervention delivery [ 19 , 20 ]. This realization has led to the development of SMS text message-based pilot and feasibility studies targeting various behaviors such as the medication adherence, HIV prevention, healthy eating, and physical activity [ 21 - 25 ].…”