Food for Thought: Virtual Home-Based Family Interventions to Improve Nutrition Behaviors

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Obesity, Childhood; Behavior, Health

Treatments: Behavioral: Teaching Kitchen Outreach; Behavioral: Healthier Families, COVID Edition

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05328193

200257

Details and patient eligibility

About

A randomized controlled trial enrolling 123 parent-infant dyads (English or Spanish speaking) comparing a virtual video Teaching Kitchen Outreach Program (TKO) with weekly grocery delivery (comparator group), to Healthier Families, COVID Edition (intervention group) which includes TKO plus a 12-week virtual health coaching intervention aimed at supporting family goal setting and behavior change including topics such as nutrition and physical activity.

Full description

The aim of this work is to conduct a randomized controlled trial to test the effect of two evidenced based programs (Healthier Families and Teaching Kitchen Outreach (TKO) adapted to a virtual platform on improving family health.

Both the intervention and comparator condition receive up to 12 weekly short (about 2-3 minutes) Teaching Kitchen Outreach (TKO) videos. Recipe specific groceries are delivered to participants' homes by a third party grocery delivery company, and are available for pickup at a central location(s). These recipes reflect foods that can be purchased with SNAP and WIC and include tested meals and snacks that were developed and evaluated in person in Parks and Recreation after-school programming (Heerman W, Elsakary Y, Sommer E, Escarfuller J, Barkin S. Assessing the Scale and Spread of an Experiential Teaching Kitchen in After-School Programming Among School-Aged Children) through the long-standing Nashville Collaborative partnership (https://pediatrics.vumc.org/nashville-collaborative). Over more than a decade, the Nashville Collaborative has developed and tested programs together to improve health and wellness and reduce childhood obesity in the local community.

Those randomized to the intervention condition receive a 12-weekly health coach via a virtual platform (such as Zoom, FaceTime, or What's App) to provide an adapted version of the previously tested Healthier Families program. Adaptations include: shortening each session to 30 minutes and delivering the programming via a virtual platform. The health coach provides the Healthier Families modules to individual child-parent pairs. Any use of Zoom for participant participation will use a version of Zoom procured through Vanderbilt. The virtual version of Healthier Families was adapted from prior research in the Growing Right Onto Wellness (GROW) trial that worked with over 600 parent-child dyads and demonstrated a statistically significant effect on health behavior change (Barkin SL, Heerman WJ, Sommer EC, Martin NC, Buchowski MS, Schlundt D, Po'e EK, Burgess LE, Escarfuller J, Pratt C, Truesdale KP, Stevens J. Effect of a Behavioral Intervention for Underserved Preschool-Age Children on Change in Body Mass Index: A Randomized Clinical Trial).

Enrollment: 123 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2 to 8 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Currently participating in programming with one of the involved community partners, including, Parks and Recreation, Nashville Public Library, Project Transformation, Head Start, Martha O'Bryan, and St. Luke's; Patients who receive primary care at the Vanderbilt Primary Care Pediatrics Clinic are eligible as well.
• Parent/legal guardian age ≥ 18 years
• Parent legal guardian of a child ages 2-8
• Ability to participate on a virtual platform (such as Zoom, FaceTime, What's App, Google Hangouts)
• Ability to addend a Zoom tool training and complete a baseline survey prior to programming
• Be able to access virtual programming through online platforms, including YouTube
• Speak English or Spanish

Exclusion criteria

• Inability to complete data collection measures via telephone, Redcap, or paper measures
• Language other than English or Spanish

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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123 participants in 2 patient groups

Teaching Kitchen Outreach

Active Comparator group

Description:

All participants (both the intervention and control condition) will receive to 11 weekly short (about 2-3 minutes) Teaching Kitchen Outreach (TKO) videos. Recipe specific groceries will be delivered to participants' homes by a third party grocery delivery company, or will be available for pickup at a central location(s). These recipes reflect foods that can be purchased with SNAP and WIC and include tested meals and snacks that were developed and evaluated in person in Parks and Recreation after-school programming.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Teaching Kitchen Outreach

Healthier Families, COVID Edition

Experimental group

Description:

Those randomized to the intervention condition will also receive a 12-weekly health coach via a virtual platform (such as Zoom, FaceTime, or What's App) to provide an adapted version of the previously tested Healthier Families program. Adaptations include: shortening each session to 30 minutes and delivering the programming via a virtual platform. The health coach will provide the Healthier Families modules either to individual child-parent pairs.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Teaching Kitchen Outreach

Behavioral: Healthier Families, COVID Edition