Mommio: Training in Vegetable Parenting

Kiddio Food Fight: Training Parents in Effective Vegetable Parenting

A 20 episode video game called Mommio simulates parent-child feeding interactions for parents of 3-5 year old children within a storyline addressing a problem commonly reported by parents (getting their 3-5 yo to taste a vegetable, which is often a first step toward eating the vegetable), thereby training parents in effective food parenting practices. This research evaluates whether the 20 episodes targeting barriers identified by parents across five levels of difficulty influences vegetable parenting practices and children's dietary intake. We had to discontinue the study since changes in commercial availability of game development software required reprogramming and available funding did not allow for completion of game programming. Thus, no game evaluation was possible.

Study Overview

• Status: Withdrawn
• Conditions: Obesity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Mommio

Detailed Description

Video games for parents that simulate interactions with a child using a narrative, offering feedback on performance and goal setting for changing practices in the real world, and addressing vegetable (V) feeding problems commonly reported by parents, may elicit desirable cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes.

The rationale for training parents of preschool children in effective V parenting practices is that: 1) parents have an important influence on young children's dietary intake; 2) child dietary intake tracks into the adult years; and 3) high V consumption protects against several chronic diseases later in life. Since parents of young children commonly complain about not getting their child to eat V, there should be broad interest in playing Mommio.

A pre-post randomized clinical trial with 110 parents of 3-5 year olds who report having difficulty getting their child to eat vegetables will be employed. The primary outcome will be parent report of children's dietary intake; the secondary outcome will be use of V parenting practices.

We had to discontinue the study since changes in commercial availability of game development software required reprogramming and available funding did not allow for completion of game programming. Thus, no game evaluation was possible.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Texas
    • Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
      • Baylor College of Medicine

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 45 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• being a parent of a child 3-5 years old
• willing to complete all measures
• having an iPhone.

Exclusion Criteria:

• the parent not speaking English (since the games are in English alone, due to budget constraints);
• having a 3-5 year old child with a medical condition that influences diet; or
• a parent with an illness that impairs the ability to complete questionnaires

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Play Mommio for 2 months; The objective is to build parent's skills in encouraging their child to eat vegetables. The player is asked to read a novella, "Totally Frobisher" (providing backstory to the game), and play a game called Mommio (a "casual" video game for parents of 3 to 5 year old children). The player calls Kiddio, the child character, to dinner, and offers a vegetable (V) (selected from among several). Kiddio refuses. The player is offered a selection of V parenting statements (from the scientific literature on food parenting) or manipulation of the environment (e.g. turning off the kitchen TV) to control the situation and encourage the child to eat the V. As problems arise (e.g. a permissive father saying he doesn't like vegetables), the player must select ways to cope. Players set a goal to do with their child at home what they learned in the game. Game episodes include food store shopping, eating in the car, at grandma's, and at a fast food store.	Behavioral: Mommio; The objective is to build parent's skills in encouraging their child to eat vegetables. The player is asked to read a novella, "Totally Frobisher" (providing backstory to the game), and play a game called Mommio (a "casual" video game for parents of 3 to 5 year old children). The player calls Kiddio, the child character, to dinner, and offers a vegetable (V) (selected from among several). Kiddio refuses. The player is offered a selection of V parenting statements (from the scientific literature on food parenting) or manipulation of the environment (e.g. turning off the kitchen TV) to control the situation and encourage the child to eat the V. As problems arise (e.g. a permissive father saying he doesn't like vegetables), the player must select ways to cope. Players set a goal to do with their child at home what they learned in the game. Game episodes include food store shopping, eating in the car, at grandma's, and at a fast food store.; Other Names: Kiddio: Food Fight; Kiddia
No Intervention: No game play; No intervention control.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Parent Reported Child Vegetable FFQ	To assess the preschool child's usual vegetable (V) intake, the participating parent will complete the V items from a 36 item FV screener which was demonstrated to have acceptable correlations with serum lycopene, lutein, cryptoxanthin, alphacarotene, and beta-carotene with a validity coefficient (r=0.35 with total carotenoids) comparable to the sum of three 24-hour dietary recalls. Parents have been shown to reliably and validly report preschool child diet intake. The response scales will be worded to reflect child's intake in the previous week. Item responses will be summed to estimate number of V servings consumed in the previous week. This questionnaire has been validated for parent report on children, and was sensitive to change.	One month from pre to post

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Vegetable Parenting Practices Questionnaire	Fruit and Vegetable Parenting Practices Questionnaire (FVPPQ), a parent-report questionnaire, includes 33 items associated with the effectiveness of parenting practices to get children to eat FV. Items will be scored on a three-point scale to indicate frequency of use of V parenting practices (1 - "frequently", 2 - "sometime", 3 - "rarely-never"). Internal consistency has been demonstrated. Helping HAND induced changes in these parenting practices.	One month from pre to post

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Qualitative Interviews	The intensive interviews will be conducted using a standardized script and commonly accepted procedures (e.g., 8-10 open ended questions, with follow up questions, prompts, and areas to probe). The questions will assess whether they attempted changes in their vegetable parenting practices with their 3-5 year old child, problems they encountered, what parents liked and disliked about the game, and how it could be made better. The parents' interviews will be about 30 minutes and audio tape recorded. Audio tapes will be transcribed verbatim and checked for accuracy prior to analysis. Following generally accepted qualitative data coding and analysis procedures, NVIVO, a qualitative software analysis program, will be utilized to facilitate data coding, retrieval, and analysis.	One month at post only

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Archimage, Inc.
• Collaborators: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Richard Buday, FAIA, Archimage, Inc.

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Beltran A, O'Connor T, Hughes S, Baranowski J, Nicklas TA, Thompson D, Baranowski T. Alpha Test of a Videogame to Increase Children's Vegetable Consumption. Games Health J. 2012 Jun;1(3):219-222. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2011.0027.
• Baranowski T, O'Connor T, Hughes S, Beltran A, Baranowski J, Nicklas T, Sleddens E, Thompson D, Lu AS, Buday R. Smart phone video game simulation of parent-child interactions: Learning skills for effective vegetable parenting. In: Arnab S, Dunwell I, Debattista K (Eds). Serious Games for Healthcare: Applications and Implications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012, 248-265.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): February 1, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): February 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 8, 2014
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 11, 2014
• First Posted (Estimate): August 13, 2014

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): October 14, 2016
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 12, 2016
• Last Verified: October 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: parents; vegetables; video game; dietary intake; preschoolers
• Other Study ID Numbers: H-33915; R44HD075521 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)