Short-Term Efficacy of a Childhood Obesity Prevention Program Designed to Pair Feeding Content With Nutrition Education

Using Mobile Technology for Family-Based Prevention in Families with Low Incomes: Lessons from a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Childhood Obesity Prevention Program

“…A second lesson is that program effects can vary significantly as a function of the amount of online content accessed. In the current study we found significant dosage effects for five outcomes—all variables showing significant online condition effects in the RCT analyses reported in Hughes et al ( 2022 ). However, dosage effects for these variables did not typically occur unless parents had accessed more than half the videos.…”

“…However, dosage effects for these variables did not typically occur unless parents had accessed more than half the videos. Two additional outcomes (pressure to eat and mealtime structure) showed online effects in Hughes et al ( 2022 ), but these effects were only significant for the English language classes. The dosage analyses presented here were likely underpowered to identify the moderating effects of program language.…”

“…All questionnaires had been successfully used with Spanish-speaking participants by Hughes et al ( 2021 ). The measures (described in detail in Hughes et al, 2020 ) were: 1) a demographic questionnaire; 2) six scores from the Food Parenting Inventory (FPI—Power et al, 2019 ) based, in part, on a second order-factor analysis of the data from the Hughes et al ( 2022 ) sample—encouraging consumption of new foods (alpha = .85), family meals (alpha = .72), child involvement in food preparation (alpha = .87), mealtime structure (alpha = .80), responsiveness to child fullness cues (alpha = .70), and pressure to eat (alpha = .61); 3) the two feeding dimensions scores from the Caregiver’s Feeding Style Questionnaire (Hughes et al, 2005 )—demandingness (alpha = .86) and responsiveness (alphas = .74—.84), as well as the 4-level categorical feeding style variable (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and uninvolved); and 4) four scores from the Feeding Knowledge Questionnaire (Hughes et al, 2021 )—home efficacy (parental efficacy for promoting child healthy food consumption at home, alpha = .83), away efficacy (parental efficacy for promoting child healthy food consumption away from home, alpha = .75), best practices knowledge (knowledge of best-practices feeding based on program content, alpha = .75), and a dichotomous score (correct or incorrect) reflecting responses to a question about how many servings it takes for children to accept a new food. Acculturation was measured with the Bi-Dimensional Acculturation Scale (BAS) (Marin & Gamba, 1996 ).…”

“…In a cluster RCT, parents with low incomes who were enrolled in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP—USDA, 2017 ) in Colorado and Washington State were assigned to one of three conditions: online (in-person ESBA plus a mobile phone-based version of FFYF), in-class (in-person ESBA plus an in-person version of FFYF), and control (in-person ESBA alone). Pre- to posttest analyses showed that parents in the in-class and online conditions (compared to controls) showed numerous changes in their feeding knowledge and practices (Hughes et al, 2022 ). The present analyses examined data from the online group to describe participant engagement, identify demographic predictors of engagement, and examine dosage effects (online exposure) on feeding outcomes.…”