Parent Focused Obesity Intervention for Low-Income African American Preschoolers

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童肥胖已达到流行病的程度，被认为是美国的公共卫生危机。美国超重和肥胖患病率的增加在学龄前人群中最为明显。低收入和少数族裔青年肥胖的风险更大，因此非裔美国学龄前儿童是干预努力的关键目标人群。尽管大量文献指出早期预防儿童肥胖的重要性，以及关注风险最大的少数民族儿童的必要性，但很少有针对这一人群的预防或干预研究。学龄前可能是实施干预策略的最佳时机和关键时间点。在这段时间里，父母通过塑造孩子的食物和活动选择，以及具体的育儿实践和行为和态度的模式，在孩子的体重方面发挥着关键作用。此外，目前的文献和我们的经验表明，家长出席是项目成功的一个实质性障碍。因此，针对这一人群的成功干预措施需要通过在家中提供干预措施来增加获得服务的机会。因此，本研究的目的是为目前超重的低收入非裔美国学龄前儿童的父母制定并初步验证以父母为中心的肥胖干预计划。这项拟议的研究将与城市先导机构一起进行。拟议的研究包括开发阶段和试点验证阶段（临床试验）。在第一个预算年度，我们建议在参与者家中开展一项为期8期的干预活动。这些课程将针对父母的营养和身体活动知识，以及他们改变与家庭饮食习惯和活动水平相关的养育方式的动机。干预内容

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions and is considered to be a public health crisis in the United States. Increases in U.S. overweight and obesity prevalence have been most apparent for the preschool age group. Low-income and minority youth are at greater risk for obesity and therefore African American preschoolers are a critical population to target for intervention efforts. In spite of substantial literature pointingto the importance of early prevention efforts for childhood obesity and the need to focus on minority children who are at greatest risk, few prevention or intervention studies have targeted this population. The preschool years may be the most opportune and critical point in time for intervention strategies. Parents play a critical role in children's weight during this time period through shaping food and activity choices, as well as via specific parenting practices and modeling of behaviors and attitudes. Furthermore, the current literature and our experience suggest that parental attendance is a substantial barrier to program success. Therefore, successful interventions for this population need to increase access to services by providing interventions in the home. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to develop and preliminarily validate a parent focused obesity intervention program for parents of low-income, African American preschoolers who are currently overweight. This proposed research will take place with an urban Head Start Agency. The proposed study includes a development phase and a pilot validation phase (clinical trial). In the first budget year, we propose to develop an intervention that is eight sessions in length that will be carried out in the participant's home. Te sessions will target the nutrition and physical activity knowledge of parents and their motivation for changing parenting related to family eating habits and activity level. Intervention content for the parent will be based on Motivational Interviewing (MI) principles. Although MI has been widely used to intervene with individual adults and adolescents, utilizing MI techniques to influence parenting behavior, especially parenting behavior related to health behavior change, is novel. In budget years 2 and 3, the pilot phase will include a sample of 76 parents recruited from the Head Start program, whose enrolled families are primarily African American. Parents will be randomly assigned to either the home-based prevention intervention or an attention control intervention. Pre, post, 6-month and 1-year follow-up data will be collected that includes BMI, parent nutrition and physical activity knowledge, motivation for health behavior change, parenting skills, child fruit and vegetable intake, intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, and activity levels. The current study will allow us to evaluate intervention feasibility and acceptabiity and estimate intervention effect sizes for a larger clinical trial. The long-term goal will be to identify best practices for reducing childhood overweight and obesity in an at-risk population.