Kids Obesity Prevention Program - Study (KOP)
Condition: Obesity; Child
MeSH terms: Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      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.
    


Intervention name(s): The serious game KOP
Intervention type(s): Other
Intervention description(s): The serious game transfers knowledge about nutrition (food pyramid, energy density of foods, which foods contribute to satiety and which not, energy in liquids, self-reflexive diagnostic tool to analyze daily food intake), physical activity (a motion-control to navigate through the game is partly used, relationship between energy expenditure and energy intake) and psychological aspects (relaxation-exercises, what is stress, stress-coping strategies).
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: obesity; child; primary prevention; serious game; nutrition; physical activity; psychosocial; stress; knowledge; diet