The alarming rates of obesity among children and adults, particularly among ethnic minorities, has been identified by the National Institutes of Health as one of the most serious public health challenges facing our nation in the 21st century. South Carolina (SC), part of the Stroke Belt, has the 3rd highest obesity rate among US children at 39.2% and the 12th highest obesity rate among US adults at 32.3%. Unfortunately, African Americans in SC are disproportionately more likely to be overweight or obese (75.7% of adults, 40% of children), which places them at considerable high-risk for obesity-related diseases such as asthma, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, and some forms of cancer. This public health challenge is compounded by the lack of available intervention strategies specially tailored to meet the unique needs of ethnic minorities. This R01 randomized clinical trial, informed by the results from a recently completed NHLBI/NICHD center grant (FIT Families Project, U01HL097889; PI-Naar) that followed the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Obesity Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) model for developing behavioral interventions, will examine the efficacy of FIT Families compared to a credible attention control condition. Each of four evidence-based behavioral components of FIT Families (home-based services, contingency management, motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral skills training) were culturally tailored and optimized through a proof of concept sequential multiple randomized trial that produced weight loss among African American adolescents, a large and understudied population. One hundred and eighty obese African American adolescents aged 12-17 and their primary caregiver will be randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions: 1) FIT Families or 2) Home-Based Family Support (HBFS) attention control condition. It is predicted that FIT Families will lead to greater reductions in adolescent and caregiver percent overweight, and increases in physical activity and the use of evidence-based weight management behaviors (self-monitoring of diet and exercise). If effective, FIT Families, which was carefully developed and adapted through successive Phases of ORBIT, has the potential to reduce disparities in obesity-related diseases (cardiovascular and metabolic) by addressing multiple risk factors among African American families and their adolescent children. Thus, this project has high significance in terms of potential public health impact and reduction in obesity related healthcare costs.
Obesity is one of the most prevalent medical problems facing children and adolescents today, particularly among African American adolescents where the rate is alarmingly high. This study will test the effectiveness of FIT Families, a multicomponent family-based behavioral intervention that is culturally tailored to meet the unique needs of African American adolescents with obesity and their caregivers, against a credible attention control condition. This study has considerable public health relevance because it is delivered by Community Health Workers, maximizing the potential for the intervention to be sustained, and may reduce obesity-related health problems for a vulnerable population of adolescents.