Childhood Obesity Management Using Innovative Digital Technology

Summary

The project will evaluate the short- and long-term effects of a 10-week Family Healthy Living Program (FHLP). The program is designed for families with children ages 8-12 years old who are at risk for being above a healthy weight and who would like support with healthy living habits such as physical activity and healthy eating.

Families will participate together, with both parents and children being involved in the program. FHLP participants will receive 9 weekly 2-hour online group sessions with a facilitation team as well as additional web-based resources. They will be compared to a control group of participating families who will be offered only the self-guided web-based resources. This will help us see the impact of offering facilitated FHLP group sessions versus only offering resources online. The FHLP is 10 weeks long, but participants will be followed for 12 months in total so that researchers can look at the long-term impact of participation.

All participating families from both groups will be asked to complete surveys and provide child height and weight measurements at four timepoints: before beginning the program, immediately after completing the program, at 6-months post-program, and at 12-months post-program. Children will also be given FitBit activity watches to measure their daily step counts at each timepoint.

Researchers will compare survey responses, child growth patterns, and FitBit step counts between the FHLP participants and the control group to see whether participating in the FHLP helps families improve their healthy living habits more than only offering a similar curriculum of healthy living resources online for families to access on their own.

Conditions

• Obesity Prevention
• Child Behaviour
• Health Behaviour Change
• Obesity and Overweight
• Physical Activity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Family Healthy Living Program weekly group sessions

Children aged 8-12 and at least one caregiver will meet for 9 weekly virtual group intervention sessions (2 hours per session) with program facilitators and will also have access to a virtual Q and A session and up to 3 virtual cooking classes with a Registered Dietician. During the intervention, participants will also have access to digital educational content that is supplementary to what is provided during the individual sessions.

BEHAVIORAL

Self-guided Web Portal Resources Only

Children aged 8-12 and at least one caregiver will be offered access to digital educational content and downloadable resources on topics such as physical activity, healthy eating, and positive mental well-being.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Victoria

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sam Liu · University of Victoria

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

8 Years

Max Age

12 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-12-15

Primary Completion

2025-05-31

Completion

2025-05-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations