Parental Participation in a Healthy Lifestyle Program for Middle Schoolers Improves Their Family Meal Patterns and Social Support and Self-Regulation for Healthy Eating (P16-041-19)

The development and dissemination of appropriate integrated curricula for parents represent a critical need and a novel approach in the obesity prevention field. Our objective was to assess if parental participation in a healthy lifestyle program (PAWS [Peer-education About Weight Steadiness] Club) for middle school students would improve parental anthropometrics, social cognitive theory (SCT) mediators of dietary behavior, and family mealtime frequency and environment. A total of 42 parents participated in five weekly 1.5-hour sessions, delivered four times from 2015–2017. The sessions were led by a trained research assistant; focused on family fitness, meal planning, family mealtimes, label reading, energy balance, making healthy choices and simple recipes, self-reflection and goal setting. Data on anthropometrics, blood pressure (BP), SCT mediators (social/family support, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and outcome expectations) of eating, and family meal patterns (frequency and environment) was collected from the parents at pre-and post-intervention. Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to determine any changes from baseline to post assessment for SCT mediators of dietary behavior and family meal patterns. Paired t-test was used to determine any changes from pre-to post-intervention for anthropometric and BP measurements. Significance was set at P < 0.05. Of the 42 participants, 67% were females (mothers); 33% self-reported White and 33% self-reported African American race/ethnicity. Participants significantly improved in their self-regulation for reducing unhealthy foods (P = 0.011), social support for balancing calories (P = 0.007), and family mealtime patterns (P = 0.003) from pre- to post-assessment. No significant changes were observed for anthropometric and BP measures. Parental participation in a healthy lifestyle program can potentially improve family mealtime environment and frequency and increase self-regulation and social support for dietary behaviors of the family. These results have implications for planning future health programs with adolescents in schools. Supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2012-68001-22032.