Exergaming for Health: Impact of a Community-Based Active Video Gaming Curriculum in Pediatric Weight Management

University of Illinois

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pediatric Obesity

Treatments: Behavioral: Exergaming; Behavioral: Didactic health teaching

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02436330

209418

Details and patient eligibility

About

Evaluation of the effectiveness of Exergaming for Health, a community-based multifaceted weight management program in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Primary objective: to assess impact of the program on BMI z-scores. Secondary objectives: to measure impact on cardiovascular fitness, self-worth, sedentary screen time, and the influence of exergaming component on attendance and participation.

Full description

Eighty-four overweight pediatric subjects will be enrolled sequentially and randomized 2:1 in experimental and control groups for six months of weight management programming. The experimental group and their parents/guardians will participate in ten weekly 2-hour sessions, comprised of 1 hour of exergaming or exergaming combined with traditional exercise and 1 hour of didactic classes focusing on nutrition and psychosocial behaviors related to weight management. Following these 10 weeks, they will attend monthly 1-hour maintenance didactic classes. The control group and their parents/guardians will participate only in the didactic portion of the curricula for the same duration of time, 10 weeks, followed by monthly maintenance classes for the remainder of the 6 month period. The control group will then be offered participation in the Exergaming for Health program upon study completion.

Comparisons between the two groups will be obtained through changes in the measurements of weight, height, BMI z-scores, shuttle run times, and responses to questionnaires about screen time, self-perception, and nutrition. Measurements of both groups will be obtained at baseline and 6 months and another set of measurements will be obtained on the experimental group at 12 months.

Enrollment: 84 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 12 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Child with BMI greater than or equal to 85th percentile.
• English speaking
• Approval by Primary Care Doctor

Exclusion criteria

• Participants with medical, developmental or psychiatric diagnoses which preclude participation in both the physical activity and classroom portions of the curriculum.
• Participants who are taking medications that positively or negatively affect weight.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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84 participants in 2 patient groups

Exergaming and Didactic health teaching

Experimental group

Description:

Participation of child and parent/guardian in 6 months of weight management programming consisting of exergaming combined with didactic teaching.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Didactic health teaching

Behavioral: Exergaming

Didactic health teaching

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participation of child and parent/guardian in 6 months of weight management programming consisting only of didactic teaching.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Didactic health teaching