Kids Obesity Prevention Program - Study (KOP)

University Hospital Tuebingen

Status: Completed

Conditions: Child; Obesity

Treatments: Other: The serious game KOP

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02551978

KOP_1

Details and patient eligibility

About

Obesity and its associated comorbidities are becoming a key and rapidly growing public health problem. The cause of obesity is an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure in favor of the former. Childhood and adolescence are seen as critical time for its development. It is therefore crucial to provide both prevention and treatment actions already during childhood. The prevention and treatment weight-management programs in children focus on improving diet, eating behaviours, psychosocial aspects and increasing physical activity. One important basic requirement for any weight-management program is, that both children and their families are motivated and ready for change. Video games, including exergames, serious games or combined approaches offer additional chances in the treatment and prevention of obesity by approaching children in their environment and motivating them to deal with life-style topics.

The investigators developed a motion-controlled serious game for children aged between 9 and 12 years, addressing all the three core areas nutrition, physical activity, and psychosocial factors. In addition to the motion control, a tablet is used for knowledge-based and cognitive tasks. In comparison to other studies the nutrition part not only deals with the food pyramid but also with the energy density of foods and liquids and offers a self-reflexive diagnostic tool to analyse daily food intake. Moreover, psychological aspects, especially stress and stress-coping strategies are addressed e.g. by relaxation-exercises. The game consists of two sessions, having each a duration of about 35 minutes.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the program in a cluster-randomized controlled trial in a primary school setting in children aged 9 to 12 years. Therefore, six 4th grade classes of the same school will be randomly allocated to an intervention and a control group. The intervention group will play the game within two weeks, whereas the control group will receive basic information. At baseline, two weeks after baseline and at four weeks follow-up, measurements will be performed. The primary outcome of the study is the gain of knowledge (nutrition, psychosocial aspects) measured by a self-constructed questionnaires tailored specifically for the serious game. Secondary outcomes are the acceptance of the game, changes of nutrition behaviour, physical activity and intentions of the children to follow a healthy lifestyle, measured by mostly validated questionnaires.

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 9 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• all children which belong to the 4th graders of a primary school

Exclusion criteria

• children with massive linguistic difficulties will be excluded (after study participation; due to ethical reasons we can not do this ahead)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Children in a primary school, aged between 9 and 12 years, play the serious game (two sessions, duration of each session 35 minutes, within two weeks). The game equips the children with knowledge about the core areas nutrition, physical activity, and psychosocial factors.

Treatment:

Other: The serious game KOP

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Children in the same primary school, aged between 9 and 12 years do receive basic information during the study phase.