Empowerment as a Proximal Outcome of an Obesity Prevention Intervention Designed by Families for Families

Obesity has short and long term physical and psychological health consequences and disproportionately affects low income families. Previous research suggests that a lack of sustained parental engagement has led to results in poor attendance in obesity prevention interventions. Communities for Healthy Living (CHL) uses Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to empower Head Start families to play a central role in the development and implementation of the obesity prevention program. Parents share decision making power with academic and community partners. This unique partnership produced a childhood obesity family-centered intervention. This intervention was incorporated into existing systems of care such as Head Start and was guided by Empowerment Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Empowerment constructs were selected for measurement based on program objectives that reflect parental participation in the design and implementation. In addition to gold standard measures of child physical activity, diet and BMI, proximal outcomes measuring behavioral determinants and resource empowerment were assessed. Results of the evaluation indicate that on average, parents completing the CHL intervention showed an increase in knowledge about resources and feeling empowered to be able to leverage resources to improve their childs' weight ( .23 points, p<.01), increase their physical activity(.29 points p<.001), and improve their diet(.22 points, p<.001). Parents also showed significant increases in self-efficacy to control a child's screen time, increasing on average .17 points. These findings suggest that the participatory intervention effectively raised the empowerment level of parents, increasing their ability to curb childhood obesity.