Sports to Prevent Obesity

Sports to Prevent Obesity Randomized Trial

The purpose of this study is to learn whether overweight children who participate in an after school team sports program improve their health as much as overweight children in a more traditional health education program.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Obesity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: After school team sports program; Behavioral: After school health education program

Detailed Description

There is an urgent need for feasible, effective, and cost-efficient programs to help overweight children control their weight. To start to address this unmet need, we are evaluating after school team sports as an intervention for reducing weight gain among low-income and at-risk of being overweight, and overweight children. After school sports programs may be generalizable, motivating, and cost-efficient interventions for long-term weight control among at-risk and overweight children. The infrastructure needed to provide such programs already exists in most communities. In contrast, more traditional, medically- and behaviorally-oriented treatment programs are expensive, generally not very effective, often inconvenient, and not available in most communities. While children involved in team sports tend to be more physically fit than their uninvolved peers, team sports has not yet been tested as a method to increase involvement of at-risk and overweight children in regular physical activity. As an added bonus, these sports programs can displace typical after school television viewing and snacking. Team sports is a potentially innovative and high impact approach for intervening with at-risk and overweight children, as it may provide an opportunity to reduce weight gain while increasing social interaction and self-esteem. If our proposed research finds that team sports are an efficacious intervention for reducing weight gain among low-income, at-risk and overweight children, it is an intervention approach that could be rapidly diffused and tested for effectiveness. The policy implications of these findings would be great, encouraging expanded access to team sports programs to a population that has not been previously targeted or included.

We propose a 1 year randomized controlled trial comparing weight changes among low-income, overweight children randomized to participate in an after school team sports program versus a traditional weight control/health education program.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 79
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Palo Alto, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford Prevention Research Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 8 years to 11 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• In the participating school district
• 8-11.9 years old
• BMI >= 85th percentile for age and sex on the 2000 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) growth charts
• Clearance to participate from medical care provider
• Willing, able, and available to attend an after school program
• Not planning to move from school district within the next 12 months
• Speaks and reads English or Spanish
• Child has not repeated more than one grade in school
• Completion of signed active informed consent (parent or guardian) and assent (child) to participate, which includes a description of the two interventions and requires their willingness to be randomized.

Exclusion Criteria:

The investigators' goal is to be as inclusive as possible, however, children will not be eligible to participate if they:

• Have a condition that limits their participation in physical activity enough that they are not able to participate in Physical Education at school (e.g. significant structural heart disease)
• Have been diagnosed with a chronic illness that affects their growth and/or weight (e.g. type 1 diabetes, hypothyroidism, inflammatory bowel disease)
• Have taken systemic steroids (oral, intravenous, or intramuscular) for a period of more than 21 days in the past year
• Are taking other medications affecting their growth and/or weight [e.g. methylphenidate hydrochloride (HCL)]
• Are pregnant
• Are unable to complete the informed consent process

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: After school sports; After school team sports	Behavioral: After school team sports program
Active Comparator: Health and Nutrition Education; Health and Nutrition Education Active Placebo Control	Behavioral: After school health education program

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Body mass index (BMI)	baseline to follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Waist circumference	baseline to follow-up
Triceps skinfold thickness	baseline to follow-up
Resting heart rate	baseline to follow-up
Blood pressure	baseline to follow-up
Physical activity monitoring	baseline to follow-up
Sedentary behaviors	baseline to follow-up
Psychosocial measures	baseline to follow-up

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Collaborators: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Thomas N Robinson, MD, MPH, Stanford University; Study Director: Dana L Weintraub, MD, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: May 1, 2006
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2008
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2008

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 25, 2006
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 25, 2006
• First Posted (Estimate): April 27, 2006

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): December 17, 2012
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 12, 2012
• Last Verified: December 1, 2012

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Obesity; Physical activity
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Overnutrition; Nutrition Disorders; Overweight; Body Weight; Obesity
• Other Study ID Numbers: 31487; 1R03DK070580-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)