Efficacy of a Guided Goal-setting Intervention for Low-Income Parents to Reduce Risk of Pediatric Obesity: Preliminary Results

Abstract

To reduce risk of pediatric obesity, behaviorally focused parental education is needed. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a guided goal setting intervention for low-income parents of young children. Parents (n=99) from Head Start participated in the study. Treatment group parents participated in a 5-week nutrition, child feeding and physical activity intervention including guided goal setting. Parents in the control group received no intervention. Data were collected at baseline(T1), 6 weeks(T2) and 1 year (T3) using a parent self-administered UCD Healthy Kids (HK) nutrition/PA behavior tool and child anthropometrics. Treatment group parents showed significant improvement in the HK nutrition/PA tool (p=.04) from T1 to T2 that disappeared when factoring in the control group. Children whose parents were in the treatment group showed a lower rate of BMI >85% increase (+6.2%) compared to the control children (+14.3%) from T1 to T3. Based on this sample, the guided goal setting intervention may be an efficacious behavioral strategy for low-income parents of young children as it appeared to have slowed the overweight/obesity rates in the treatment group children. The HK tool itself could have served as an intervention as indicated by the improvements seen in the control group. Future research should include a larger sample and participant randomization.