The major intent of this project is to modify and expand a family weight gain prevention program that has previously been shown to be effective. Our previous America On the Move (AOM) Family Program, which focused on helping families make small changes in their dietary and physical activity behaviors, and was successful in significantly reducing weight gain in overweight and obese children over a period of 6 months. We now propose to evaluate specific revisions to the AOM Family Program to improve adherence and dissemination. Specifically, in this two year project, we will: 1) determine whether providing a single small change goal for diet modification to the family diet produces better adherence than providing three simultaneous small changes goals;2) evaluate whether providing small change tips for modifying the food and physical activity environments within the home increases adherence to small change diet and physical activity goals;3) finalize transitioning the AOM family intervention to the AOM website and determining whether delivery of this intervention via the internet affects physical activity and sedentary time in children. Our hypotheses are that: 1) a single diet goal will be better than three goals;2) making small changes to the home food and physical activity environments will make it easier to adhere to the behavioral goals, and 3) the delivery of the program via the internet will not negatively impact physical activity. The family program will be revised based on the results of these studies and we anticipate applying for continued funding to evaluate the revised program over a 24 month period in families with children ages 8-12 who are overweight. These results will also allow us to determine the feasibility of delivering the program via the AOM website. The results of this project will improve a tool that has already been shown to have great potential for helping reduce the high rates of obesity in children.

R01DK042549

1990-05-01

2011-06-30