Can Home-Based Healthy Habit Programs Help Prevent Childhood Obesity?
Can Home-Based Healthy Habit Programs Help Prevent Childhood Obesity?
This study examined whether a home-based program could help families build healthier habits and improve BMI in young children and their parents.
What We Did and Why We Did It
Researchers studied 285 families with preschool-aged children in the Guelph Family Health Study. Families were randomly assigned to either:
- A 6-month home-based program that included home visits with a health educator, emails, and activities to support healthy family habits, or
- A comparison group that received monthly emails about healthy child behaviours.
The researchers measured the body mass index (BMI) of both children and parents before the program, after 6 months, and again one year later.
Healthy habits that develop during early childhood can last a lifetime. Researchers wanted to see if helping families build healthier routines at home (such as eating together, being active, getting enough sleep, and limiting screen time) could help prevent obesity in both children and parents.
What we found
What we can learn from this
The home-based program did not lead to greater improvements in BMI for children or parents compared with the comparison group. Children’s BMI decreased slightly over time in both groups, while parents’ BMI increased slightly over the follow-up period. Overall, the intervention did not have an additional effect on BMI beyond the healthy lifestyle information provided to the comparison group.
Supporting healthy family routines is still important, but changing BMI may take longer than six months to one year. Future follow-up of these families will help researchers understand whether these healthy habits have a greater impact as children grow older.
Read the full article published in the Pediatric Obesity Journal:
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