Childhood Obesity Treatment: A Maintenance Approach
Condition: Obesity
MeSH terms: Obesity; Pediatric Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Obesity is a major public health problem. At least 15 million American adults are obese, and
      the number is rising. Childhood obesity is also increasing in prevalence and currently
      affects approximately 11-22 percent of children aged 6 to 11. Childhood obesity is associated
      with serious negative physical, emotional, and social consequences. Obese children are at
      high risk for becoming obese as adults; 24-44 percent of obese adults were obese as children.
      The risk of an obese child becoming an obese adult is especially high when at least one
      parent is obese. To date, adult obesity is known to be resistant to treatment. In contrast,
      promising long-term effects have been found with children who received behavioral
      family-based weight loss treatment. However, even with state-of-the-science programs, a
      substantial percentage of children (i.e., over 40 percent) regain all or most of the weight
      lost once treatment ends. The proposed study examined the efficacy of two intervention
      strategies designed to improve the long-term maintenance of weight loss in children relative
      to discontinued treatment contact following an active weight loss treatment phase (no
      maintenance treatment control (NTC).
    

Detailed description: 
      This is an efficacy study comparing two intervention strategies designed to improve the
      long-term maintenance of weight loss in children compared to a no maintenance treatment
      control group. In this study, overweight children between the ages of 7-12 years old
      participated along with their overweight parents in a 20-week behavioral, family-based weight
      loss treatment. Following weight loss treatment, participants were randomly assigned to one
      of two 4-month maintenance interventions or to a no-continued treatment control. The
      Behavioral Skills Maintenance intervention (BSM) will confront the declining motivation to
      engage in weight-maintenance behaviors, incorporate specific skills for weight maintenance,
      and teach coping skills and relapse prevention techniques. The Social Facilitation
      Maintenance treatment will use an innovative, socially-based approach to enhance peer
      support, increase parental instrumental support, improve body image, and teach effective
      responses to teasing as methods for sustaining weight maintenance behaviors (i.e., healthy
      diet and physical activity). It is expected that children participating in BSM and SFM
      interventions will demonstrate better outcomes at the point of the weight maintenance
      intervention cessation than children not provided any maintenance treatment. It is further
      hypothesized that the developmentally appropriate focus and more pervasive and sustaining
      nature of the SFM treatment targets relative to BSM targets will result in better weight
      maintenance outcomes for SFM than BSM children. Follow-up assessments will occur at the end
      of the maintenance phase of treatment, as well as at 12 and 24 months following the initial
      weight loss treatment. Effective maintenance treatments in children will have a substantial
      impact on children's immediate and future physical, psychological, and social well being.
    

Intervention name(s): Behavioral Skills Maintenance; Social Facilitation Maintenance
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Childhood obesity; intervention; obesity; weight loss; behavior therapy; peer group; social support network; child; clinical research; human subject