skill-based cooking intervention to reduce eating out

Conditions: Obesity

Summary: the primary goal of the study is to use an iterative process to develop and refine a skill-based cooking intervention to decrease the consumption of energy from foods prepared away from home for evening meals, decrease energy intake, and promote a healthy weight in parents and children aged 3-10 years.

phase i. conduct 2-4 focus groups with 6-10 caretaker, who report eating foods prepared away from home ≥3 times per week, per group to gain insight into current eating behaviors of foods prepared away from home, current perceptions about a home prepared evening meal, and barriers to preparing evening meals at home. information gathered during phase i will be used to inform intervention development in phase ii. phase ii. develop, refine, and manualize a skill-based cooking intervention for overweight/obese caretakers of a child aged 3-10 years. the aim of phase ii is to test the feasibility of a skill-based cooking intervention to reduce the consumption of foods prepared away from home for the evening meal (e.g., pre-prepared frozen foods, restaurant foods, fast food, take-out), energy intake from evening meals, and promote a healthy weight in parents and children. information collected during phase i will inform the development of the skill-based cooking intervention. once developed, the intervention will be refined with 6 primary caretakers of a child, who meet criteria for being overweight/obese during a testing phase. conducting the intervention with at least six families will provide the opportunity for further refinement of intervention procedures. the results will be important to demonstrate feasibility for a future pilot randomized controlled trial that will test the impact of a skill-based cooking intervention compared to a standard cooking demonstration where recipes are simply provided to families.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria (phase i): * be ≥18 years of age * have a child between the ages of 3 and 10 years-old * report being the primary caretaker and have the primary feeding responsibility of the child for dinner/supper * able to read, speak, and understand english * have transportation to the medical center * report their family including the child eats pre-prepared frozen food, restaurant food, fast food, or take-out for dinner ≥3 times per week * has a working telephone number * is able to attend the scheduled date and time of a focus group. inclusion criteria (phase ii): * caretaker is ≥18 years of age * caretaker is overweight or obese (bmi≥25) * has a child between the ages of 3 and 10 years-old * report being the primary caretaker and have the primary feeding responsibility of the child for dinner/supper * caretaker is able to read, speak, and understand english * has transportation to the medical center and the instructional kitchen * does not plan to move out of the area before june 2015 * reports their family including the child eats convenience food, restaurant food, fast food, or take-out for dinner ≥3 times per week * reports access to a kitchen * able to attend the scheduled date and time of the sessions. exclusion criteria (phase ii): * the caretaker or child is currently participating in a weight loss program and/or taking weight loss medication * have a medical condition known to promote growth (e.g., prader-willi syndrome, cushing's syndrome) or had gastric bypass surgery.

Keywords: cooking skills eating out foods prepared away from home