Randomized Controlled Trial Outcomes for HomeStyles-2, an Online Obesity Prevention Program for Families with...

Background: Parents are children's primary role models, are food and physical activity gatekeepers, and create the home structure/lifestyle environment. Thus, parents strongly influence children's weight-related behaviors and have the opportunity to cultivate a "culture of health" within the home. Methods: The aim of the HomeStyles-2 (also called HomeStyles-Child) RCT was to determine whether this online, novel, age-appropriate, family intervention enabled and motivated the 131 systematically randomly assigned by computer parents of children in middle childhood (ages 6 to 11) in the experimental condition to shape home environments and healthy weight-related lifestyle practices to be more supportive of optimal health and reduced obesity risk in middle childhood youth more than the 134 counterparts assigned to the attention control condition. Results: This RCT demonstrated the feasibility of online delivery of a health promotion intervention to parents of children in middle childhood, which may inform the development of interventions targeting other age groups and health outcomes. Results indicate the HomeStyles-Child intervention improved healthy-weight-related behavior cognitions, which are predictors of behavior change, of the experimental group. Additionally, improvements in experimental parent and child health-related behaviors were observed. These improvements occurred during a time when families faced unprecedented and extraordinary economic and social stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: HomeStyles-Child is one of the few interventions for families with middle childhood youth. It has the potential to help ameliorate obesity in middle childhood youth and, by extension, other family members.