Family Program for Weight Gain Prevention
Condition: Overweight; Obesity
MeSH terms: Overweight; Weight Gain
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The long-term goal of this project is to develop, evaluate, and disseminate to Extension
      Service families across the state of Colorado, an engaging, interactive, and evidence-based
      Family Program in order to prevent weight gain in adults and excess weight gain in children.
      Excess weight gain in children is defined as an increase in body weight beyond the increase
      in weight associated with normal growth and development. The program will focus on small,
      easily adopted, sustainable, lifestyle changes.

      Project Objectives include:

        1. Enhancing a Family Program by including food and physical activity environmental
           assessments, an online social network, and a pre-programmed health-based text messaging
           system, and by gaining feedback from extension families through a series of 6 focus
           groups.

        2. Conducting a randomized trial to evaluate the impact of the enhanced Family Program on
           the prevention of weight gain in families with overweight children. The investigators
           hypothesize that excess weight gain will be prevented in subjects in the intervention
           group, while those in the control group will gain excess weight.

        3. Disseminating the Family Program through USDA Cooperative Extension Services in Colorado
           and evaluate the usefulness/effectiveness of the program for USDA Extension agents and
           participating families. The investigators will conduct 4 additional focus groups at the
           end of this objective to gain feedback on its usefulness in a "real-life" setting. This
           objective is different from objective 2 in that the investigators are evaluating the
           program in a real-life setting, using qualitative and self-reported data, rather than
           conducting a clinical trial.

      By conducting focus groups with Extension families during both objectives #1 and 3, the
      Family Program will help to improve knowledge regarding behavioral and environmental factors
      influencing obesity. After enhancing the Family Program (Objective #1), the investigators
      will test its effectiveness in a randomized study of 200 families (Objective #2). Finally,
      after having developed and tested this effective intervention strategy, the investigators
      will disseminate it through Extension Agents throughout the state to evaluate its usefulness
      in a "real-life" setting (Objective #3).
    


Intervention name(s): Family Program for the Prevention of Weight Gain; Control Group
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The Family Workbook is a step-by-step instruction guide for families to use throughout the 6-month period, detailing healthy lifestyle. All handouts, instructions, activities, and a timeline of the program are laid out for families in this workbook.; This group will not be provided the workbook and it is hypothesized those in the control group will gain excess weight.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary purpose: Prevention