Family Empowerment for Enhanced Development (Project FEED)

University of Pittsburgh

Status: Completed

Conditions: Feeding Behavior; Obesity, Childhood

Treatments: Behavioral: Mealtime PREP Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03641716

PRO17070504

UL1TR001857 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates the feasibility and preliminary effects of offering the Mealtime PREP intervention to low-income families with young children. All enrolled families will receive the Mealtime PREP intervention in the home to evaluate the effects on child nutrition.

Full description

Children have not been spared from the obesity epidemic. There is a great need for innovative interventions to help families build healthy habits early in life for obesity prevention. Low-income preschoolers have a disproportionately high rate of childhood obesity, and their families face complex barriers to healthy behavior change. This proposed pilot study will examine the feasibility of delivering the Promoting Routines of Exploration and Play during Mealtime (Mealtime PREP) intervention in a sample of low-income families with young children (ages 2-5). Our parent-mediated intervention is designed to promote healthy dietary variety using routine family meals, positive reinforcement, social modeling, and food exploration and play. By harnessing the behavior change capacity of behavioral activation to alter daily mealtimes incrementally, parents are empowered to overcome barriers to healthy habit formation. Each family will participate in a six-week intervention that is delivered by occupational therapy clinicians in the home environment. Each session will last approximately one hour and include individualized parent-training and a parent-led mealtime with direct feedback from the clinician. We planned to screen up to 100 potential parent and child participants, with a plan to deliver intervention to 20 child participants.

Enrollment: 20 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Child:

• within age range 2-5 years
• reside in a low-income household (as specified by income within the range to qualify for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.

Parent:

• >18 years old
• ability to read and speak in English
• willing to participate in 6 home-based intervention sessions

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

20 participants in 1 patient group

Mealtime PREP Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Parents of young children will receive 6 weekly sessions, each lasting approximately one-hour, in the home environment. An occupational therapy clinician will deliver the Mealtime PREP intervention to the family.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mealtime PREP Intervention