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. 2022 May 17;10(5):924.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare10050924.

Online Parenting Intervention for Children's Eating and Mealtime Behaviors: Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Vatsna Rathore  1 , Amy E Mitchell  2   3   4 , Alina Morawska  4 , Santosh Kumar Tadakamadla  1   5
Affiliations

Online Parenting Intervention for Children's Eating and Mealtime Behaviors: Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Vatsna Rathore et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

Introduction: Obesity and overweight are significant health problems among Australian children. Parents play a vital role in establishing healthy eating behaviors in their children. However, parents often experience difficulties in implementing effective parenting practices and lack confidence in their ability to help children adopt these behaviors. This trial will evaluate the efficacy of an online program, Healthy Habits Triple P, in improving children's snacking and mealtime behaviors and related parenting practices.

Methods and analysis: This is a single-blinded, randomized controlled trial for parents of young Australian children aged 2-6 years. Participants will be recruited through childcare centers, social media, online parent forums and existing networks. The participants in the intervention arm will receive access to a web-based parenting intervention in addition to nutrition-related information for parents published by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; those in the control arm will receive nutrition-related information only. After the completion of the study, the parenting intervention will be offered to the control arm. The primary outcome will be improvement in children's eating habits. The secondary outcomes include parents' self-efficacy, confidence, children's mealtime behaviors and mealtime parenting strategies. Both primary and secondary outcomes will be evaluated through online-administered, validated parent-reported questionnaires. We will also undertake a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the practicality and acceptability of the intervention.

Keywords: children; healthy eating; intervention; parents; snacking; study protocol.

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Conflict of interest statement

The Parenting and Family Support Centre is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P–Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by the University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences at UQ and the contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd. is a private company licensed by Uniquest Pty Ltd. on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. The authors of this report have no share or ownership of TPI. Morawska receives royalties from TPI. TPI had no involvement in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of data, or writing of this report. Morawska is an employee at UQ. Mitchell is an honorary research fellow at UQ.

References

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