NCT03881280

The System Fammeal With Tailored Recommendations and Gamification for Parents to Counteract Childhood Obesity

The System Fammeal Comprising an App With Tailored Recommendations and Gamification for Parents to Counteract Childhood Obesity, at Health Care Centers - Pilot Randomized Control Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 28 (actual)
• Sponsor: Universidade do Porto · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 36 Months – 83 Months
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The investigators aim to test an evidence-based intervention, allocated to a mobile app designed to parents and their children with 3 to 6 years old, identified by family doctors or nurses at well-child care visits as overweight or obese for age. This intervention aims to improve parent's perceptions and attitudes regarding children's weight status and food intake, leading to better dietary intake and children's' eating behaviors through positive parental child-feeding practices. In this study, the investigators aim to assess the feasibility of the intervention and explore its impact on the beliefs and attitudes of parents.

Detailed description

The investigators will enroll parents and their children with 3 to 6 years old, identified by family doctors or nurses at well-child care visits as overweight/obese for age. Participant's eligibility will be assessed. Participants will be randomized to: 1) control group; 2) intervention group. The control group will receive treatment as usual. Parents in the intervention group will be provided with the app and invited to use it for 4 weeks. During the 4 weeks, the administrator monitors the app usage and call once to parents to improve it, if needed. Both groups will perform a pre- and post-test, evaluating parent's perceptions and attitudes regarding children's weight status and food intake; eating behaviors and parental child-feeding practices.

Conditions

• Overweight and Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Parenting education program	Parenting education program through the app Fammeal. It includes educational content, tailored to parents and centered on positive parenting child-feeding practices. The app will also include a virtual-pet game for children, in order to help them self-regulate their intake. Through the app, parents will: * Fill in a registration questionnaire, which will tailor recommendations. * Receive information and video content recommendations. * Set goals related to their child's lifestyle and tracking progress. * Earn points by watching the contents. * Invite children to play a serious game. * Exchange messages with other users. The investigators created a support website that connects to the main server to get data gathered from the mobile app and game.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-02-06
• Primary completion: 2019-05-01
• Completion: 2019-06-14
• First posted: 2019-03-19
• Last updated: 2020-09-17

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Portugal