Parent Perceptions of Weight Status: Impact of a Pilot Intervention

April 24, 2013 updated by: University of Colorado, Denver

Parent Perceptions of Weight Status: Impact of a Pilot Intervention to Enhance Awareness of Risk for Overweight Parents and Their Children

This pilot study is a randomized controlled trial with an embedded cross sectional study exploring parental perceptions of their weight status and how it affects their perceptions of their child's weight status. This study uses an educational intervention in which parents are informed of their actual weight status and how it affects their child's health. We will study the effect of this intervention on the parent's perceptions of and level of concern for their own and their child's weight status.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Pediatric obesity has tripled in the past 20 years. Obesity prevention early in life is important and parental participation is essential. Parents must recognize overweight in their child so health providers may engage them in a dialogue to change their child's diet and physical activity patterns, yet a large proportion of parents do not recognize that their child is overweight. Parents' misperception of their overweight child's weight status presents a barrier to treating obesity.

This pilot study is a randomized controlled trial with an embedded cross sectional study exploring parental perceptions of their weight status and how it affects their perceptions of their child's weight status. This study uses an educational intervention in which parents are informed of their actual weight status and how it affects their child's health. We will study the effect of this intervention on the parent's perceptions of and level of concern for their own and their child's weight status.

Our goal is to develop a primary care intervention that will enhance parental perceptions of overweight and motivation to make changes for their family. Pilot data collected here will support an R21 Exploratory/Developmental Clinical Research Grant in Obesity or a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) grant submission.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

222

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Colorado
      • Aurora, Colorado, United States, 80010
        • The Children's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

3 years to 13 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Boys and girls ages 3 to 13 years old presenting with at least one biological parent for a routine health maintenance exam (WCC) at the Child Health Continuity Clinic will be eligible. Parents must be able and willing to have their height and weight measured at the clinic

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Child has previously been referred to a nutritionist/dietician or specialized clinic/program for weight management
  2. Child is currently being treated for failure to thrive
  3. Child is on parenteral nutrition
  4. Child is on chronic systemic steroid therapy
  5. Child is non-mobile/wheelchair bound
  6. The family has previously enrolled into the study with a prior sibling
  7. Family is unable to be contacted at home
  8. Presenting parent cannot speak and read English or Spanish at at least a 5th grade level

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Education Intervention

The intervention used in the randomized controlled trial consists of 1) measuring the parents' height and weight and 2) providing the parents with feedback on their calculated BMI on an educational handout (included in Appendix V). The purpose of the handout is to convey the following 5 messages:

  1. Definition of BMI
  2. How BMI is calculated
  3. What the parent's BMI is based on the measurements taken
  4. What weight category the parent is in (underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese)
  5. Children with overweight or obese parents are at higher risk of becoming overweight themselves.

The Research Assistant will verbally review the educational handout with the parent. The handout will be available in both English and Spanish.
Behavioral: Education Intervention
The intervention is a short educational handout regarding BMI and the effect of parental weight status on children.
No Intervention: Control Group
Parents assigned to the control group will proceed to their child's well child visit after their baseline data are collected.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Proportion of parents correctly assessing their own weight status
Time Frame: At first visit
At first visit

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Proportion of parents correctly assessing their child's weight status
Time Frame: At first visit
At first visit
Proportion of parents who underestimate own weight status who also underestimate their child's weight status
Time Frame: At first visit
At first visit
Change in proportion of parents underestimating their own weight status
Time Frame: At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey
At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey
Change in proportion of parents underestimating their child's weight status
Time Frame: At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey
At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey
Change in level of concern pre- and post-intervention
Time Frame: At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey
At first visit and at one week follow up phone survey

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Colorado, Denver

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Christina Suh, MD, University of Colorado, Denver
  • Principal Investigator: Nancy F. Krebs, MD, University of Colorado, Denver
  • Principal Investigator: Allison Kempe, MD, MPH, Univeristy of Colorado Denver

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2007

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2008

Study Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2008

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 19, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 20, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

March 23, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

April 26, 2013

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 24, 2013

Last Verified

April 1, 2013

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 07-0329

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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