ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03368716ACCEPTUpdated Aug 31, 2022

Acceptance-based Care for Child Eating and Physical Activity Treatment

An interventional study of Acceptance-based Behavioral Treatment (ABBT) in Pediatric Obesity, Executive Function and Self-Regulation, sponsored by University of Alabama at Birmingham. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 8 Years to 12 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2022-08-31.

Sponsored by University of Alabama at Birmingham · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
184
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
8 Years to 12 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this study is to develop and pilot test a new type of patient-centered, family-based treatment for children aged 8-12 with obesity and their caregivers. The treatment will focus specifically on improving children's self-regulation (SR) skills to help them better manage their feelings, behaviors, and thoughts to help them live a healthier lifestyle.

Read the detailed description

We aim to: (1) To determine the treatment needs of children ages 8-12 with obesity and their families with a focus on understanding cognitive function challenges that are related to self-regulation (using focus groups i.e. FG and feedback sessions i.e. FB). (2) To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of this novel family-based treatment. (3) Explore potential associations between pediatric cardiovascular (CVD) risk factors and self-regulation in children with and without overweight or obesity. (4) To refine the F-ABT protocol and to maximize participant feasibility, acceptability, safety, and tolerability of F-ABT. (5) To provide pilot, proof-of-concept, and preliminary efficacy data of beneficial effects of F-ABT on SR and BMI in children with SR deficits and their caregivers.

02

Conditions studied

  • Pediatric Obesity
  • Executive Function
  • Self-Regulation

Keywords

  • Pediatric Obesity
  • Executive Function
  • Behavioral Intervention
  • Self-Regulation
  • Acceptance-Based
03

In context

Pediatric Obesity

1,129 studies on the registry are indexed under Pediatric Obesity; 187 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 184 is above the median of 100 across 870 interventional studies indexed under Pediatric Obesity.

Browse Pediatric Obesity studies →

Lead sponsor

University of Alabama at Birmingham is the lead sponsor of 1,421 studies on the registry; 277 are open to participants now.

Of its 164 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 130 (79%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
8 Years to 12 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Children who: (1) have a ≥ 85th percentile; (2) are ≥8 and ≤12 years old at the beginning of treatment; (3) can read, write, and speak English, along with their caregiver; (4) plan to stay living in the local area during the study period; (5) have a consenting caregiver who can commit to all study procedures and provide reliable travel.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Children who:(1) comorbid developmental/intellectual disability/traumatic brain injury/other identified condition known to substantially impact EF and/or weight management; (2) taking medication that is known to affect weight or appetite, (3) recent infection that may cause confounds of acute inflammation, (4) have an uncorrected visual or hearing impairment that would prohibit completion of cognitive testing, and (5) are unable to use an iPad with appropriate training for cognitive testing. The children without obesity (n=32) will have "normal-range" scores (5th ≤BMI percentile\< 85th) but otherwise follow the same inclusion/exclusion criteria.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

BMI (body mass index)

Weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Example: 70 kg and 1.75 m gives 70 ÷ (1.75 × 1.75) ≈ 22.9.

What counts as overweight or obesity differs between countries (some use lower cut-offs), so go by the range the study states.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
184 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Acceptance-based Behavioral Treatment

    Family acceptance-based behavioral treatment (ABBT) will be piloted with 16 child-caregiver pairs. At weeks 0 (pre-treatment), 9 (mid-treatment), and 18 (post-treatment), feedback regarding the feasibility and acceptability will be collected from participants through surveys and semi-structured group interviews to refine the family ABBT protocol.

    Behavioral: Acceptance-based Behavioral Treatment (ABBT)

Interventions

  • BehavioralAcceptance-based Behavioral Treatment (ABBT)

    ABBT is rooted in behavioral therapy but also cultivates self-regulation skills including experiential acceptance of potentially uncomfortable internal experiences (e.g., emotions, cravings), mindful awareness of decision making (e.g., mindful eating), and values clarification and behavioral commitment (e.g., practicing daily physical activity to be a contributing member on a sports team). ABBT has been used effectively to help youth and adults manage various medical and psychological problems. Moreover, components of ABBT have been shown to improve child and adult EF including inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Recently, ABBT has been integrated with components of standard behavioral treatment of obesity and applied with robust efficacy to weight management in adults.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Change in child body mass index

    Child height and weight measurements will be converted to zBMI using CDC age and sex specific scales.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  2. Change in child objective executive function

    Performance-based EF will be tested using the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery which measures executive function (inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility), attention, episodic memory, language, processing speed, and working memory. T-scores will be used for each domain. Higher t-scores indicate better function.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  3. Change in child subjective executive function

    Subjective EF will be measured using the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function. The Global Severity Index will be used which is interpreted using T-scores. Higher t-scores indicate better function.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  4. Change in Health-Related Quality of Life

    Sizing Me Up© \& Sizing Them Up© are validated obesity-specific self-report and parent-report measures, respectively, of health-related quality of life for children 5-13 years old that measure functioning in a variety of areas (e.g., emotional, physical, teasing/marginalization). The Total Score will be used as the outcome, which is a scaled score ranging from 0-100 with higher scores representing better quality of life.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  5. Cortisol

    ug/dl

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  6. Blood pressure

    Systolic over diastolic

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  7. Fasting glucose

    mg/dl

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  8. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) cholesterol

    mg/dl

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  9. High-density lipoprotein (HDL-C) cholesterol

    mg/dl

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  10. Triglyceride

    mg/dl

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  11. Insulin

    uU/ml

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  12. Hemoglobin A1C

    Percentage

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  13. Leptin

    ng/mL

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  14. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-a)

    pg/ml

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  15. Interleukin (IL-6)

    pg/ml

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  16. High-sensitivity reactive protein (hsCRP)

    mg/L

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

Secondary outcomes

  1. Child body fat percent

    The Tanita SC-240 BIA device has been validated for use with children to assess total body fat to the nearest 0.1%. Total body fat percent will be standardized using age and sex specific CDC conversions.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  2. Waist circumference

    The Gulick II anthropometric tape will be utilized to measure children's waist circumference, which will be converted to national published standardized (z) scores.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  3. Child eating behavior

    The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire is a 35-item parent proxy-report measure of eating behavior producing 8 subscales: responsiveness to food, enjoyment of food, satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, fussiness, emotional overeating, emotional undereating, desire for drinks. Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale and the mean score of each subscale is used. Higher scores indicate more eating behaviors in a certain domain.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  4. Dietary behavior

    Child and parent dietary habits will be assessed via self-report throughout the intervention using the online USDA SuperTracker software.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  5. Physical activity behavior

    Child and parent physical activity habits will be assessed via self-report throughout the intervention using the online USDA SuperTracker software.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  6. Mindfulness

    The Child Acceptance and Mindfulness Measure (CAMM) is a 10-item measure of children's awareness and acceptance of their own private events or internal experiences. Items are reverse scored on a 5-point Likert scale. Higher scores correspond to higher levels of mindfulness.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  7. Psychological flexibility

    The Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y) is a 17-item self-report measure for to assess psychological inflexibility in children. Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale and summed for a total score ranging between 0-68. Higher scores are indicative of greater psychological inflexibility. The Parental Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (PAAQ) is a 15-item measure that evaluates parents' experiential acceptance and action tendencies in the context of their relationship with their children. The Total score is used which is a sum of all items which are rated on a 7-point Likert scale. Higher scores represent a greater degree of parental experiential avoidance.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

  8. Impact of the food environment

    The Children's Power of Food Scale is a 15-item self-report assessment of the psychological impact of living in food-abundant environments. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale and summed to create a total score. Higher scores reflect greater responsiveness to the food environment.

    Time frame: Baseline to 4.5 months

Other outcomes

  1. Demographics

    Child and caregiver characteristics such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, educational level, family income, and marital status will be assessed via caregiver report at baseline only.

    Time frame: Baseline

  2. Participant satisfaction - interviews

    Semi-structured group interviews will assess caregiver and child experiences with the program.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

  3. Participant satisfaction - surveys

    Surveys will assess the utility of intervention content, intervention burden and satisfaction, participation barriers, and suggestions for change.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

  4. Program feasibility - interviews

    Semi-structured group interviews will assess caregiver and child experiences with the program.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

  5. Program feasibility - surveys

    Surveys will assess the utility of intervention content, intervention burden and satisfaction, participation barriers, and suggestions for change.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

  6. Adherence - attendance

    The number of sessions attended will be the primary indicator of adherence.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

  7. Adherence - self-monitoring

    As a secondary measure, we will use the number of days that self-monitoring records were completed. A completed self-monitoring record should have at least 2 meals and the total number of exercise minutes recorded per day.

    Time frame: 9 weeks, 18 weeks

07

Study locations

1 site
  • University of Alabama at Birmingham
    Birmingham, Alabama 35209, United States
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No — Given the small number of participants involved in various aspects of the pilot study, we currently do not plan to widely share individual participant data to maximize confidentiality. Individual requests will be considered.

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Feb 2019 to primary completion in Jan 2022, 35 months.

Of 539 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Pediatric Obesity, half reached primary completion within 25 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 11 and three quarters within 45. This study's 35 months is above that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 541 studies reached it within 25 months; a quarter within 11 and three quarters within 45.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Nov 29, 2017
First posted
Dec 11, 2017
StartActual
Feb 4, 2019
Primary completionActual
Jan 31, 2022
CompletionActual
Jan 31, 2022
Last update
Aug 31, 2022
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 31, 2022, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03368716
Collaborators
University of Alabama at Birmingham Patient Centered Outcomes Research Program, University of Alabama at Birmingham Diabetes Research Center, Kaul Pediatric Research Institute of the Alabama Children's Hospital Foundation, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Responsible party
Marissa Gowey (Assistant Professor, University of Alabama at Birmingham) — Principal investigator
First posted
Dec 11, 2017
Start date
Feb 4, 2019
Primary completion
Jan 31, 2022
Completion
Jan 31, 2022
Last update
Aug 31, 2022

Study contacts

Marissa A Gowey, PhD
principal investigator · University of Alabama at Birmingham

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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