Starting Early Obesity Prevention Program

Summary

The proposed study is a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a primary care, family-centered child obesity prevention program beginning in pregnancy and continuing throughout the first three years of life compared to routine standard of care. The study aims to reduce the prevalence of obesity at age three, improve child diet composition and healthy lifestyle behaviors. Pregnant women will be enrolled from a large urban medical center serving primarily low-income immigrant Latino families. The intervention "Starting Early" will consist of three components. 1) Family Groups: interactive groups coordinated with the child's primary care visits and led by a Nutritionist/ Child Developmental Specialist. 2) Nutritional Video: a culturally-specific bilingual early nutrition video will be incorporated into family group discussions. 3) Plain Language Handouts: given to reinforce the curriculum from the family groups.

The proposed research included in the funding continuation is titled: "Starting Early: Expansion of a Primary Care-Based Early Child Obesity Prevention Program". It adds three major components to the current project: 1) Following the original Starting Early cohort until age 5; 2) Developing and piloting an extended Starting Early preschool intervention for children aged 3-5 years.; 3) Developing and piloting an extended Starting Early prenatal intervention for women in the 1st trimester of pregnancy. A new cohort of 200 women in the first trimester of pregnancy will be recruited for the prenatal intervention; all women will receive the intervention in this feasibility trial.

Hypothesis: Compared to controls, the intervention group will show reduced obesity and improved parent feeding knowledge and increased healthy feeding attitudes, styles and practices

Conditions

• Childhood Obesity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Family groups

The group sessions are designed to facilitate on-going interaction among consistent groups of 6 - 8 parents and other care givers with infants the same age and will be coordinated with scheduled well child care visits. They will be conducted in English and Spanish. The groups will focus on nutrition and, parenting.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

  collaborator FED

• NYU Langone Health

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mary Jo Messito, MD · NYU School of Medicine

• Rachel Gross, MD MS · Children's Hospital at Montefiore

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-04-30

Primary Completion

2023-08-01

Completion

2023-08-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations