The Effect of a Serious Health Game on Children's Eating Behavior

August 26, 2021 updated by: Frans Folkvord, Tilburg University

Can Garfield Make Children Eat Healthier? A Cluster-randomized Controlled Trial to Examine the Effect of a Serious Health Game on Children's Eating Behavior

Background: Currently the dietary intake patterns of children do not meet the prescribed dietary guidelines. Consequently childhood obesity is one of the most serious health concerns. Therefore, innovative methods need to be developed and tested in order to effectively improve the dietary intake of children. Learning children how to cope with the overwhelming number of unhealthy food cues could be conducted effectively by serious health games.

Objective: The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of a serious health computer game on young children's eating behavior and attitudes towards healthy and unhealthy foods.

Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled trial with a between-subject design was conducted (N=157; 8-12 years), whereby children played a game that promoted a healthy lifestyle or were in the control condition. Children in the control condition attended regular classes and did not play a game. The game was designed in collaboration with researchers and pilot-tested before conducting the experiment among a group of children repeatedly. After one week of playing, attitudes towards food snacks and actual intake was assessed, whereby children could eat at libitum from fruits or energy-dense snacks.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

157

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

  • Netherlands
      • Tilburg, Netherlands
        • Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences

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

7 years to 13 years (CHILD)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • primary school between group 5 and 8

Exclusion Criteria:

  • n.a.

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: TREATMENT
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: FACTORIAL
  • Masking: SINGLE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Serious health game
Children played a serious health game with Garfield promoting health behavior, such as less intake of energy dense snacks, drink more water, and exercise more often.
Behavioral: Serious health game
Serious health game
EXPERIMENTAL: control
Children in this condition did not play a serious health game and were in control condition.
Behavioral: Serious health game
Serious health game

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
calorie intake of energy dense snacks (candy) and fruits (bananas and apples)
Time Frame: 1 week after treatment
Energy dense snacks and fruits
1 week after treatment

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Tilburg University

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 (ACTUAL)

April 1, 2018

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

June 1, 2018

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

July 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 3, 2021

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 26, 2021

First Posted (ACTUAL)

August 30, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

August 30, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 26, 2021

Last Verified

August 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • BSI-01

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

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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