The Family Check-Up for Health: A Family Centered Health Maintenance Approach to Improve Nutrition and Prevent Obesity in Early Childhood

The overarching goal of the proposed project is to improve parental support of childrens nutrition and physical activity to prevent childhood obesity, which burdens the healthcare system and leads to early mortality. The project has the following aims: Aim 1 (Extension): Deliver science-based knowledge and skills to ethnically diverse families, and the practitioners and decision leaders in underserved communities; and disseminate the FCU4Health to trainee and professional practitioners. Aim 2 (Research): Test the effectiveness of the Family Check-Up 4 Health (FCU4Health) in a 3-year randomized trial of 180 (117 FCU4Health; 63 control) low-income families with healthy weight children ages 2 to 8 at risk for poor dietary habits seen in pediatric primary care. Children in the FCU4Health arm are expected to show better nutrition, physical activity levels, health-related quality of life, and more stable healthy weight trajectories compared to families in the control arm. Improvements in parenting and family management skills will mediate these effects. The team will carefully document FCU4Health implementation on relevant variables (acceptability, feasibility, fidelity, and reach). Behavioral intervention costing methods will be used to estimate critical costs assocaited with implementing FCU4Health and a cost benefit analysis to evaluate the monetary benefits. Aim 3 (Education): Engage in graduate and medical education activities to increase knowledge about nutrition science and the strategies parents can use to support young childrens healthy behaviors. The proposed project has the potential to achieve AFRIs program goal of preventing childrens excess weight gain by improving nutrition.