Get Fruved: Obesity Prevention for Older Adolescents

Summary

This program is a non-diet approach to obesity prevention for older adolescents which does not promote following a special diet to manage weight; it promotes healthy behavior associated with obesity prevention. This approach is important with youth and older adolescent populations to avoid impairment in emotional well-being associated with body dissatisfaction. Healthy weight status will be achieved by improving dietary intake patterns, increasing physical activity, and improving stress management. Fall of year 01 was devoted to the recruitment of student partners (intense intervention group) and the development of partnerships. In the spring of year 01, recruited students were enrolled in two newly developed undergraduate courses across four intervention state partners, became collegiate 4-H members, planned a social marketing campaign, and/or learned to be peer mentors or student researchers. In year 02, first year college students were recruited, peer mentors were matched with a group of first year students, and the developed social marketing campaign was pilot tested on four college campuses (diffuse intervention) by the collegiate 4-H teams. In year 02, a toolkit with 24 weeks of intervention activities was also refined. In year 03, the collegiate 4-H team (intense intervention group) used the refined toolkit to test and implement the intervention on college campuses. In year 03, the assessment process for high school 4-H students (intense intervention group) will be pilot tested and college students will work with the high school students on adapting the toolkit for use in the implementation of the social marketing campaign in high school settings in year 04 (diffuse intervention). ). In year 04, the pilot and feasibility tested college intervention was tested with a randomized control trial design with 30 intervention and 29 control university partners. The adapted high school toolkit was pilot and feasibility tested in three intervention and two control high school settings. In year 05, the high school intervention was tested with a randomized control trial design with 9 intervention and 7 control high schools in one district's high schools. On all measures it is anticipated that participants in the intensive intervention group will have greater improvements than those in the diffuse intervention group and both intensive and diffuse intervention groups will have improvements over those in the control groups.

Conditions

• Obesity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Social marketing and health promotion campaign

Students in the intensive intervention group developed a nine-month social marketing health campaign. The campaign included five costumed characters who interacted with students on campus in residence halls, dining halls, and other highly-trafficked public areas on campus. Photos and videos of interactions were put on social media. Student participants from the general population (the diffuse intervention group) were asked to set weekly healthy goals related to diet, physical activity, and stress management throughout the campaign and received email and text messages with goal-specific written and video health-promotion messages. Faculty partnered with the students throughout the intervention process to educate and give advice on the content of health promotion messages.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

  collaborator FED

• University of Florida

  collaborator OTHER

• West Virginia University

  collaborator OTHER

• South Dakota State University

  collaborator OTHER

• Auburn University

  collaborator OTHER

• Syracuse University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Maine

  collaborator OTHER

• Kansas State University

  collaborator OTHER

• The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sarah Colby, PhD, RD · University of Tennessee

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Max Age

24 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-08-31

Primary Completion

2020-07-31

Completion

2020-07-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations