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Feasibility of standardized methods to specify behavioral pediatric obesity prevention interventions

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Abstract

Standardized methods are needed to evaluate what occurs within the ‘black box’ of behavioral interventions to prevent pediatric obesity. The purpose of this research is to evaluate methods to specify the behavior change techniques used and the amount of time spent discussing target weight-related behaviors in an intervention for parents of children at risk for becoming overweight or obese. Independent coders were trained to identify behavior change techniques and time spent discussing weight-related behaviors in audio recordings and transcripts of intervention sessions from 100 randomly selected participants. The behavior change technique taxonomy (BCTTv1) was used to code techniques present in sessions. A newly-developed tool was used to code time spent discussing each target weight-related behavior (e.g., physical activity, screen time). Sessions from a subset of these participants (N = 20) were double coded to evaluate inter-rater reliability. After revisions to coding protocols, coders reliably coded behavior change techniques used and time spent discussing target weight-related behaviors in sessions from the subset of 20 participants. The most commonly discussed target weight-related behavior was physical activity followed by energy intake and fruit and vegetable intake. On average, 13.9 (SD = 2.8) unique behavior change techniques were present across sessions for a given participant. These results offer reliable methods for systematically identifying behavior change techniques used and time spent discussing weight-related behaviors in a pediatric obesity prevention intervention. This work paves the way for future research to identify which specific target behaviors and techniques are most associated with the prevention of unhealthy weight gain in children.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dani M. Bredeson, Molly J. Colombo, Shannon N. Gerberding, and Ashley L. Barthel for their help with data collection and coding.

Funding

This work has been funded by Grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (#R01DK084475, Co-PIs Sherwood and Levy; T32DK083250, PI Jeffery; P30DK050456, PI Levine; and P30DK092924 PI O’Connor).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Applied Research, Allina Health, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Meghan M. JaKa & Robert W. Jeffery

  2. Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Simone A. French

  3. Division of Biostatistics, Univeristy of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Julian Wolfson

  4. Centre for Health Services Research, City University London, London, UK

    Fabianna Lorencatto

  5. Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London, London, UK

    Susan Michie

  6. Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Shelby L. Langer

  7. School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Rona L. Levy

  8. HealthPartners Institute, Bloomington, MN, USA

    Nancy E. Sherwood

Authors
  1. Meghan M. JaKa
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  2. Simone A. French
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  3. Julian Wolfson
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  4. Robert W. Jeffery
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  5. Fabianna Lorencatto
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  6. Susan Michie
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  7. Shelby L. Langer
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  8. Rona L. Levy
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  9. Nancy E. Sherwood
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Meghan M. JaKa.

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Conflict of interest

Author Susan Michie is Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London which has received funds from industry and government agencies. Meghan M. JaKa, Simone A. French, Julian Wolfson, Robert W. Jeffery, Fabianna Lorencatto, Shelby L. Langer, Rona L. Levy, and Nancy E. Sherwood declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed consent

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study prior to enrollment.

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JaKa, M.M., French, S.A., Wolfson, J. et al. Feasibility of standardized methods to specify behavioral pediatric obesity prevention interventions. J Behav Med 40, 730–739 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9845-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9845-z

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