Motivation Approach for Childhood Obesity Treatment

In a recent study, we have demonstrated that the motivational therapy approach to treat childhood obesity is highly effective at clinical and metabolic levels. This efficacy has been proved in a clinical outpatient setting. However, a standardized collaborative approach between the clinic and the primary care services would allow a faster and easier approach to childhood obesity treatment. Furthermore, this motivational and educational intervention would benefit from the current technologic facilities, the long term effect of the education at group level, in terms of food shopping plan, healthy, fast and cheap cooking methods that would be useful specially in low income families (with a higher prevalence of childhood obesity). The aim of this study is assessing the clinical and metabolic efficacy of a family intervention, coordinated between the clinical and primary care services from the Tarragona health-care region, using a motivational therapy at individual and group levels, which involves e-Health tools (wearable), focusing on families with an 8 to 13 years old obese child. The design will be a clustered randomized control trial, with an intervention group that will receive a multicomponent motivational and educational plan which will be compared to a control group receiving the usual recommendations performed in primary care centres (n=167 per group). The treatment of both study groups will last 12 months and will be performed at the primary care centres. In parallel, the study team will validate the methodology used to assess body composition in obese children as well as the changes produced by the intervention.