New Ulm at HOME (Healthy Offerings Via the Mealtime Environment), NU-HOME

University of Minnesota (UMN)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Physical Activity; Obesity, Childhood; Food Intake; Rural Health

Treatments: Behavioral: NU-HOME Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT02973815

1R01HL123699 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

1509S78583

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of the proposed project is to see if an innovative family-based intervention can reduce childhood obesity by actively engaging the whole family in promoting healthy behaviors in the home. In addition, the project will also examine how the NU-HOME family intervention influences children's dietary intake, availability of healthy and unhealthy foods in the home and served at meals and snacks, physical activity as a family, and child screen time (TV, game systems). The study will build upon a similar project conducted in an urban area and translate the lessons learned and adapt the program for a rural community.

Full description

Childhood obesity is a serious public health problem. Although previous environmental approaches to obesity prevention show some promise, most studies have not shown excess weight gain reductions. Moreover, few childhood obesity prevention studies significantly engage parents or focus on the home environment, which is essential to promote healthy behaviors at home. Children in rural communities are particularly vulnerable regarding increased risk for obesity; thus, successful programs that engage families in rural communities to prevent excess weight gain are critical. The proposed research project, New Ulm at Home (NU-HOME), is a unique collaboration between leaders in a rural community (New Ulm, Minnesota) and successful academic obesity researchers. The residents of New Ulm are poised for and are requesting interventions to promote healthful behavior change, particularly for youth. In conjunction with our many community stakeholder groups, the objective of the proposed research is to test the effectiveness of the NU-HOME program, a 7-month, family-based health promotion intervention to prevent excess weight gain (assessed via BMI z-score) among 7-10 year old children (n=114) in the New Ulm rural community. The intervention program is based on Social Cognitive Theory and a socio-ecological framework and will focus on novel health promotion components to prevent childhood obesity, including: 1) promoting regular meals in which family members cook and eat together (i.e., family meals), 2) promoting nutritionally-sound and appropriately-portioned snacks and meals, 3) reducing sedentary behavior, particularly screen time in the home setting, and 4) promoting physical activity through collaboration with community partners. The NU-HOME study is designed in four stages, including substantial formative work between the academic and community partners, a two-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT; intervention and wait-list control), and two activities to facilitate sustainability (delayed intervention delivery for control group participants and dissemination). A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach will be used to adapt an existing program, HOME Plus that was piloted and shown to be effective in urban communities. The NU-HOME program has high translation potential and is likely to be immediately useful to rural families of school-age children because it will be tested in a real-world setting in collaboration with engaged, knowledgeable and influential community partners.

Enrollment: 228 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 7 to 99 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• child between the ages of 7-10 who lives with the target adult at least 50% of the time
• parent/guardian must be the primary-meal preparing parent/guardian

Exclusion criteria

• planning to move out of the area in the next 6 months
• medical condition that would prevent family from participating in group sessions

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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228 participants in 2 patient groups

NU-HOME Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomized to the intervention condition will receive the NU-HOME family intervention program that includes group sessions with other families focused on nutrition education, cooking skills, and physical activity. The intervention program also includes individual goal setting phone calls with parents and online, complementary materials.

Treatment:

Behavioral: NU-HOME Intervention

Delayed Intervention

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants randomized to the delayed intervention condition will not receive any educational materials or training until after the final data collection. Once all data collection is completed, they will receive a shortened version of the NU-HOME intervention program that was offered to the intervention families.