Building Healthy Families: Outcomes of an Adapted Family Healthy Weight Program Among Children in a Rural Mid-Western Community

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing an adapted, evidence-based 12-week Family Healthy Weight Program (FHWP), Building Healthy Families, on reducing BMI metrics and clinical health indicators in a real-world community setting. Ninety child participants with a BMI percentile...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Childhood obesity Vol. 20; no. 7; p. 468
Main Authors: Abbey, Bryce M, Heelan, Kate A, Bartee, R Todd, George, Kaiti, Foster, Nancy L, Estabrooks, Paul A, Hill, Jennie L
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 01-10-2024
Subjects:
Online Access:Get more information
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing an adapted, evidence-based 12-week Family Healthy Weight Program (FHWP), Building Healthy Families, on reducing BMI metrics and clinical health indicators in a real-world community setting. Ninety child participants with a BMI percentile greater or equal to the 95th percentile for gender and age and their parents/guardians (  = 137) enrolled in the program. Families attended 12 weekly group-based sessions of nutrition education, family lifestyle physical activity, and behavior modification. A pre-post study design with a 6-month follow-up was used. Nine cohorts of families between 2009 and 2016 completed the program with 82.1% retention at 12 weeks and 53.6% at 6 months. Participants had statistically significant improvements at 12 weeks in BMI z-score, %BMIp95, body mass, body fat, fat mass, fat-free mass, and systolic blood pressure with greater improvement at 6 months in body mass, BMI metrics, body fat, fat mass, fat-free mass, and systolic blood pressure. Parents/guardians of the participants had similar statistically significant body composition and blood pressure improvements (  < 0.05). In addition, children had significant improvements in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) liver enzymes at 6 months. Overall, this study demonstrated that an evidence-based FHWP can result in statistically meaningful declines in BMI z-score and accompanied clinically meaningful changes in health risk. Participants lost ∼4% of their body mass in 12 weeks, while their parents/guardians lost closer to 7% of their body mass, which supports previous literature suggesting body mass changes influence health.
ISSN:2153-2176
DOI:10.1089/chi.2023.0142