Pilot of 'Families for Health': community-based family intervention for obesity

Wendy Robertson ^1*, Tim Friede ¹, Jackie Blissett ², Mary CJ Rudolf ³, Maybelle A Wallis ⁴ and Sarah Stewart-Brown ¹

¹ Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
² School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
³ Belmont House, Leeds Primary Care Trust, United Kingdom
⁴ Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals Trust, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: w.robertson{at}warwick.ac.uk.

Accepted 23 April 2008

Abstract

Objective: To develop and evaluate 'Families for Health' - a new community based family intervention for childhood obesity.

Design: Programme development, pilot study and evaluation using intention-to-treat analysis.

Setting: Coventry, England

Participants: 27 overweight or obese children aged 7-13 years (18 girls, 9 boys) and their parents, from 21 families.

Intervention: 'Families for Health' is a 12 week programme with parallel groups for parents and children, addressing parenting, lifestyle change and social & emotional development.

Main Outcome Measures: Primary: change in baseline BMI z-score at end of programme (3 months) and 9 month follow-up. Attendance, drop-out, parents' perception of programme, child's quality of life and self esteem, parental mental health, parent-child relationships and lifestyle changes were also measured.

Results: Attendance rate was 62%, with 18 of the 27 (67%) children completing the programme. For the 22 children with follow-up data (including 4 drop-outs), BMI z-score was reduced by -0.18 (95%CI -0.30 to -0.05) at end of programme and by -0.21 (-0.35 to -0.07) at 9 months. Statistically significant improvements were observed in children’s quality of life and lifestyle (reduced sedentary behaviour, increased steps and reduced exposure to unhealthy foods), child-parent relationships and parents’ mental health. Fruit and vegetable consumption, participation in moderate/vigorous exercise and children’s self-esteem did not change significantly. Topics on parenting skills, activity and food were rated as helpful and were used with confidence by the majority of parents.

Conclusions: Families for Health is a promising new childhood obesity intervention. Definitive evaluation of its clinical effectiveness by randomised controlled trial is now required.