NCT03145688

Family Habit Physical Activity Study

Promoting Habit Formation in Family Physical Activity

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 240 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Victoria · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 6 Years – 12 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to examine physical activity habit formation in parents and if this can increase moderate to vigorous physical activity behavior in their children over six months. The Primary Research Question is: Does the habit formation condition result in increased moderate-vigorous intensity physical activity of the child compared to the control (education) and education + planning conditions at six months? Hypothesis: Child physical activity will be higher for the habit formation condition in comparison to the more standard physical activity education and planning conditions at six months.

Detailed description

Secondary Research Questions 1. Does the habit formation condition improve child health-related quality of life, and health-related fitness outcomes compared to the control and planning conditions at six months? Hypothesis: Child health-related fitness and quality of life will be higher for the habit formation condition in comparison to the control and planning conditions. 2. Can group differences among behavioural, and health-related fitness outcomes be explained through a mediation model? Hypothesis: The covariance of the assigned conditions (habit formation, planning + education, education control) on child physical activity will be explained by parental support habit, and through the use of consistency and cues regulation strategies (i.e., manipulation check). In turn, the covariance between support habit and health-related outcomes will be explained by physical activity among conditions. The habit formation condition will not affect parental support intentions or underlying outcome expectations (benefits of physical activity) for support of child physical activity because its effect on behavior is to tie initial intentions to behavioural action or to work independent of goals and intentions. 3. Is there an intergenerational, seasonal, or gender difference across primary outcomes by assigned condition? Hypothesis: Parents in the habit formation condition will show higher physical activity via some activities being performed with their children in comparison to the other conditions. No differences in gender or season are hypothesized but these are exploratory research questions because there is limited research at present \[28\] to make any definitive statement.

Conditions

• Physical Activity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Family Physical Activity Planning	Families will receive the same guidelines as the standard education control group but will also be provided with family physical activity planning material. This material will include a skill training content workbook on how to plan for family physical activity. The material includes a brainstorming exercise for parents where they list physical activities they think their children have found fun in the past, as well as activities that they would find enjoyable to do as a family. We will provide this material as prompts/suggestions. Families will be instructed to plan for "when," "where," "how," and "what" physical activity will be performed \& then track their physical activity. These aspects will be re-introduced and discussed at week 6 and week 12 in booster sessions
BEHAVIORAL	Family Physical Activity Habit Formation	Families will receive the same content as the education control condition and the physical activity planning condition but with additional material on creating physical activity support habits. A key component of the habit section will be based on planning for context-dependent repetition, with pointers on how to maintain repetition as habit forms. The importance of creating cues for parental support of child physical activity is then outlined. Cues will also be considered factors that a) can precede the support activity but b) not be present very often when the activity is not to be performed. We will suggest that cues that have repeated exposure during times when family physical activity is not present Parents will then be asked to brainstorm and create a plan of consistency and cues with the workbooks provided. These aspects will be re-introduced and discussed at week 6 and week 12 in booster sessions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-02-12
• Primary completion: 2025-09-01
• Completion: 2025-12-01
• First posted: 2017-05-09
• Last updated: 2025-04-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada