Starting Healthy Staying Healthy Pilot Trial
Condition: Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to determine whether a reduction in toddlers' and preschoolers'
      exposure to television advertising leads to a change in their diet.
    

Detailed description: 
      TV viewing is among the most significant features of childhood. In the past generation or
      two, new technologies have made media viewing more ubiquitous and frequent: 30% of children
      eat regularly in front of TV, one-third under 6 have TVs in their bedrooms, and 30% make TV
      part of bedtime routines. By the age of 2 years, 90% of children watch TV or videos
      regularly. Among those who watch, average viewing is 1.5 hours daily by age 2.

      Yet the effects of this early viewing are poorly understood. In this study, we focus on
      children's diet, because children's food preferences have been shown to be easily influenced
      by advertising, and children's non-educational programming is heavy with advertising for poor
      nutritional-quality foods.

      We will recruit 70 families with children ages 24-30 months and randomize them to either a
      television-minimization intervention (the intervention arm) or a toddler safety and injury
      prevention arm (the control arm). A case manager will actively work with the intervention arm
      participants to strategize ways of minimizing their media exposure. In addition, families in
      the intervention arm will get access both to a study website and to a monthly newsletter. The
      website and newsletter will inform participants of the potential hazards of early media
      exposure, and will offer tips for alternative activities and strategies for keeping children
      occupied while the parent gets a much-needed break. The control arm will have no case
      manager, but will have access to a website and newsletter that will emphasize toddler safety
      and injury-prevention themes. At the conclusion of the 4-month trial, we will assess (a)
      whether the study participants regularly accessed their respective websites; (b) whether the
      intervention-arm participants have different beliefs and attitudes about television for
      toddlers; and (c) whether fewer intervention-arm children watch TV compared to control-arm
      infants.

      The comparison group will receive a similar intervention, except that it will not mention
      television viewing, and will instead focus on toddler and preschooler safety and
      injury-prevention topics, such as the appropriate use of car seats, smoke detectors, hot
      water heater temperature, safe gun storage, and other similar topics.
    

Intervention name(s): TV modification; safety and injury prevention
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Parents receive a health behavior-change intervention consisting of 1 in-person visit from a case manager, followed by phone and e-mail contact at least monthly. The intervention is designed to promote healthy TV viewing, including viewing fewer commercials, by the target child aged 2-5 years old, and uses health behavior change theory and social cognitive theory.; Parents receive behavior-change counseling around toddler and preschooler safety and injury prevention.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Diet, reducing; Television; Child Behavior