Obesity prevention is cancer prevention. In 2012 the American Cancer Society (ACS) developed guidelines that recommended healthy nutrition, regular physical activity, and weight control as cancer prevention strategies. Cancer prevention begins in childhood because obesity prevention begins in childhood. Healthy lifestyle interventions targeted at children as early as preschool have enormous potential to affect lifelong health. The most promising interventions utilize parents as partners with their children t change healthy lifestyle behaviors in both the child and the parent. Barkin et al demonstrated that a 12 week 90 minute skills building program (Healthy Families Program) with families of young children (ages 3-5 years), based in community recreation centers, resulted in a reduction of child BMI of 0.59, p <0.001 and changed how parents and young children utilized their built environment to support regular physical activity one year after the program ended. Scaling up this effective community-based family centered healthy lifestyle program will require an assessment of adoption and adaptation for dissemination and implementation. We propose a pilot to adapt, package, and test feasibility for this effective program to other parks and recreation centers. Four different Parks and Recreation programs from across the country will participate. In year one, we will convene an Advisory Committee comprised of Parks and Recreation leaders, managers, staff and families with young children that they serve. Semi-structured interviews with Parks and Recreation leaders, staff and families with young children (n=40) will provide direct feedback for the adoption and adaptation of the Healthy Families Program including: parent-preschool child healthy lifestyle skills building modules, recreation center leader facilitator guides, and a social media tool for healthy behavior maintenance. Additionally, training for Parks and Recreation Healthy Family Program leaders will be developed. In year two, after Healthy Families Program leaders have been trained and certified, 20 families/site will participate in the 12 week program. Data about attendance, fidelity, and program cost will be collected. Participating families will complete a pre- and post- survey on parent-child nutrition, physical activity, and recreation center use habits. A sample of participating families and all the Healthy Families Program leaders will participate in semi-structured interviews (N =40) to identify what worked and could be maintained. Parks and Recreation is an existing infrastructure that reaches more than 230 million Americans. Therefore adapting effective programs for practical dissemination and implementation through this existing infrastructure could improve healthy lifestyles for families, reducing cancer risk potentially in both young children and their parents.
Obesity prevention is cancer prevention. Therefore adapting effective obesity prevention programs for practical dissemination and implementation within the existing infrastructure of Parks and Recreation could improve healthy lifestyles, reducing cancer risk potentially in both children and their parents.
| Teeters, Leah A; Heerman, William J; Schlundt, David et al. (2018) Community readiness assessment for obesity research: pilot implementation of the Healthier Families programme. Health Res Policy Syst 16:2 |
| Heerman, William J; Schludnt, David; Harris, Dawn et al. (2018) Scale-out of a community-based behavioral intervention for childhood obesity: pilot implementation evaluation. BMC Public Health 18:498 |
