NCT03334669

Family-centered Obesity Prevention: Communities for Healthy Living (CHL)

Empowerment as a Mechanism for Change in Childhood Obesity Prevention

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 4,999 (actual)
• Sponsor: Boston College · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 3 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The Communities for Healthy Living (CHL) program is a family-focused intervention to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors including diet and physical activity among children (age 3-to 5-years) and their families, enrolled in Head Start.

Detailed description

This evaluation will test the effectiveness of a family-focused intervention, Communities for Healthy Living (CHL), implemented through Head Start. Over 20% of preschool-aged children in the US experience overweight or obese. Because obesity prevention depends heavily on the adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviors early in life, preventive efforts offer a higher promise for success if they are family-centered. Effective family-centered interventions for obesity prevention in preschool-aged children, however, remain elusive. While a number of interventions have shown positive effects on child Body Mass Index (BMI), results are inconsistent and short term effects are not maintained. What is more, because families at greatest risk of childhood obesity - including low-income, single-parent, and ethnic minority families - are the most difficult to recruit and retain, results are often limited in their applicability to high risk populations. In response, the researchers have partnered with Head Start to develop and test a new approach to family-centered childhood obesity prevention that addresses family engagement upfront. The CHL program will be refined and rigorously tested for efficacy in collaboration with Head Start programs in the greater Boston area, which collectively serve over 2000 low-income children each year. Building on a previous pilot study, the investigators will broaden the parent-centered Community Based Participatory Research approach and include Head Start staff in the decision making and implementation process, refine intervention components, and expand technical assistance protocols to support Head Start ownership of CHL while ensuring implementation fidelity. In addition, consistent with the overarching theoretical framework (Family Ecological Model), neighborhood-level socioeconomic, food and physical activity environments around family homes and examine their impact on intervention outcomes will be measured to inform future scale up efforts.

Conditions

• Pediatric Obesity
• Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Parents Connect for Healthy Living (PConnect)	Parents Connect for Healthy Living (PConnect) parent curriculum: This 10-week program (20 hours total) engages Head Start parents in a wide range of topics related to health and empowerment and is designed to foster a safe, open forum through which parents can connect with other parents and mobilize resources to support their family's health; NOTE: The PConnect program was not implemented in 2019-2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020-2021, PConnect was implemented virtually; these are pilot data and not part of the main trial.
BEHAVIORAL	Enhanced Nutrition Support	Enhanced Nutrition Support: Existing nutrition resources within Head Start (e.g., Biannual child health letters) are expanded and improved to ensure parents are aware of their child's weight status and are linked with age-appropriate weight management services if their child has overweight or obesity. NOTE: Enhanced nutrition support was not implemented in spring 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2020-2021, it was moved to a virtual format in what will be a pilot virtual trial.
BEHAVIORAL	Media Resources	Media Resources: Print and online resources that employ consistent messaging to reach parents and ensure that behavior change messages are accessible to families. NOTE: Due to the pandemic, media resources were not shared in spring 2020. They were implemented in virtual format in 2020-2021 in a pilot virtual trial.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-10-01
• Primary completion: 2019-12-31
• Completion: 2019-12-31
• First posted: 2017-11-07
• Last updated: 2025-09-29

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States