Abstract
Home environment is key to the development of obesity-preventing behaviors during childhood, yet few resources help preschool parents address factors at home associated with obesity risk. This paper describes creation of materials for an in-home intervention (HomeStyles) with this population. An advisory group of stakeholders and target audience members determined salient factors affecting childhood obesity to address in-home and developed program materials. The Social Cognitive Theory, Faith’s Core Behavior Change Strategies to Treat Childhood Obesity, Adult Learning Theory and motivational interviewing techniques guided development of 12 guides targeting strategies parents can use to shape the home environment. Interviews were conducted to determine effectiveness of the guides. Cognitive testing of guide design (n = 251) and content (n = 261) occurred in English and Spanish in New Jersey and Arizona with parents and home visitation staff who would present the guides. Interviews investigated perceptions of content usefulness and parent comprehension. Findings were also examined in light of theoretical underpinnings. Both home visitation staff and parents felt the guides were very readable and useful. Parents appreciated use of motivational interviewing techniques and Adult Learning Theory. Current research is testing these guides through an in-home, randomized control trial.
Highlights
The home environment plays a dominant role in the development of childhood lifestyle patterns and these patterns track across the growing years into adulthood [1,2,3,4,5]
The purpose of this paper is to describe the process implemented in the creation of the intervention materials for the HomeStyles program
Parents appreciated the positive writing tone employed, recognition of their life experiences, and application of information to reach their goals. These guides are innovative and novel in several ways, including being among the first nutrition education materials to focus on preventing obesity in children less than age 5 [15,36,78,262,263,264] and using a multifactorial approach to address a broad array of factors associated with increased obesity risk [15,48]
Summary
The home environment plays a dominant role in the development of childhood lifestyle patterns and these patterns track across the growing years into adulthood [1,2,3,4,5]. As role models and family food gatekeepers, parents strongly influence food intake and physical activity behaviors of children [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] and are key influencers of obesity-preventing behaviors of children during the growing years [1,2,3,7,8,10,11,12,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46]. Meals appear to be important in helping children develop healthy eating patterns [26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34]
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