Virtual Fitness Buddy Ecosystem

Summary

The VFB Ecosystem capitalizes on digital technologies' ability to connect parents and children, allowing parents to actively support their child's physical activity, even when parents cannot be present. The VFB is a kiosk-based system that houses a virtual dog programmed to allow children to set self-determined physical activity goals. The children wear Fitbits while performing physical activity. Using the unique data embedded in the Fitbit, the kiosk is able to detect each individual child and automatically connect him or her to a unique, personalized virtual dog. Physical activity data is transmitted automatically from the Fitbit to the kiosk when the child approaches, and the virtual dog provides accurate evaluations of whether the child met the self-determined physical activity goal, offering words of encouragement and physical activity support. The virtual pet functions as a personalized fitness buddy to encourage children to set and meet physical activity goals, promote physical activity self-efficacy, and foster mutually supportive relationships among children, parents, and the virtual pet. This will be particularly helpful for children who receive insufficient amounts of social support in their current environment.

Concurrently, the kiosk sends a text message to parents on the child's physical activity progress. Parents are then able to send words of encouragement and communicate with their children via the kiosk, using the text messaging feature of their mobile phones. Thus, even when the parent is not with the child, the virtual pet is designed to serve as a coordinating focus for facilitating parent-child communication. Parents will also receive text messages from the kiosk with a security code to access a website that provides detailed records of the child's physical activity over time.

Conditions

• Physical Activity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Virtual Fitness Buddy Ecosystem

The Virtual Fitness Buddy Ecosystem allows parents to stay involved in the intervention and support their children's PA efforts even when they cannot be with their children. A virtual pet, designed to mimic human-pet relationships in the physical world, will guide children to set and meet PA goals and offer tailored support. In collaboration with YMCA, 480 children and 480 parents in 24 afterschool programs will be randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Afterschool programs in the treatment group will receive the Ecosystem intervention for 6-months; afterschool programs in the control group will not experience the Ecosystem. All children will complete baseline assessments, a 3-month posttest, and a 6-month and 12-month follow up. Parents and children will provide self-report data on their perceived social support, motivation, and PA self-efficacy. PA will be assessed with activity monitors, which children will wear throughout the project.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Georgia

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, Ph.D. · University of Georgia

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Years

Max Age

10 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-08-27

Primary Completion

2024-06-30

Completion

2024-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations