Latino Fathers Promoting Healthy Youth Behaviors

The Latino Parents Promoting Healthy Youth Behavior Project aims to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention to prevent obesity among Latino youth (10-14 yrs) by engaging parents and their families in culturally and linguistically appropriate education. The goal of this project is to prevent overweight and obesity in Latino adolescents by increasing the frequency of positive paternal or maternal (or other caregiver) parenting practices related to the food and physical activity environment in the home (role modeling, availability, expectations, communication) which will improve weight status of children by improving energy balance related behaviors (EBRBs) - eating fruits and vegetables and limiting soft drink, sweets, salty snacks, and fast food consumption, limiting screen time and increasing physical activity).

Objective 1) To adapt, implement and evaluate efficacy of a curriculum specifically for Latino families, using Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) that incorporates parenting education to increase frequency of parenting practices (role modeling, availability, expectations, communication) to improve EBRBs and weight status of youth.

Objective 2) To evaluate the efficacy of Latino parent-focused education that combines enhancing parent engagement, building quality parent-child relationships, promoting healthy eating and physical activity, and engaging families with community resources for healthy foods on youth EBRBs and weight status.

Formative research and planning will be completed in Years 1-2 including focus group interviews and consultation with community partners and a Parent Advisory Board. An existing 8-session course curriculum will be adapted. The adapted curriculum will be pilot-tested with a small group of parents and children in a single group, pre-post design, and revised as needed.

In years 2 to 4, a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted based on full implementation of the adapted curriculum by collaborating agencies with the support of U of MN Extension. Training will be designed and implemented among community partner and U of MN Extension staff who will be implementing the program at local sites.

The RCT will be implemented at two organizations in each of years 2, 3 and 4 in a staggered fashion. In year 5, data will be analyzed, reports developed, papers written and submitted for publication, and results will be reported back to community collaborators (organizations and individuals).

Hypothesis:

1. Compared to a delayed-treatment control group at immediate post-course and 3 months post-course, statistically significant changes will be observed in the home food and physical activity environment and frequency of related paternal and maternal parenting practices (making fruits, vegetables, and opportunities for physical activity more available and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), sweets, salty snacks, fast food and opportunities for sedentary behaviors less available; role modeling of positive EBRBs, setting expectations and rules related to improvements in EBRBs, and increased frequency of parent-youth communication regarding youth EBRBs).
2. Compared to a delayed-treatment control group at immediate post-course and 3 months post-course, youth in the treatment group will have statistically significant improvements in EBRBs including increased fruit and vegetable intake, increased physical activity, lower intake of SSBs, sweets, salty snacks and fast food, decreased screen time/sedentary time, and stable weight status.