Pilot-testing a social cognitive theory-based intervention to prevent childhood obesity

In the United States, since 1980, the prevalence of overweight has doubled in children and tripled in adolescents. Various health education efforts are being tested for preventing childhood obesity. One such approach is by implementing health education through physical education teachers in existing physical education classes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design and test a social cognitive theory driven intervention in physical education classes for reducing childhood obesity. The intervention was developed by a dietitian and a health educator for implementation by regular physical education teachers and was based on a set of focus group discussions with children from fifth grade and their parents. The intervention focused on reinforcing four specific behaviors of (1) regular physical activity, (2) increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, (3) replacing consumption of sweetened beverages with plain water and (4) watching less television. A 56-item valid and reliable scale that measured the four behaviors and their SCT-based antecedents of expectations, self-efficacy, and self control was used to measure the dependent variables. The intervention was 12 weeks long and was implemented with 122 fifth grade students. The pilot test data was analyzed in a pre-test post test design using paired t-test. The intervention was successful in influencing expectations for drinking water instead of sweetened beverages (p<0.04) and influencing expectations for watching less television (p<0.002) among children. The other constructs of social cognitive theory were not influenced. Recommendations for developing and testing future interventions are presented.