BACKGROUND
Dietary, physical activity and behaviour modifications are the first line treatment for obesity in any weight management programme. Uncertain situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, has allowed online nutrition counselling telemedicine usage to rapidly proliferate due to social immobility. Educational materials that are provided during nutritional counselling are important to enhance children’s understanding of nutrition information.
OBJECTIVE
The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Stage-based Nutrition Education Package for the Management of Childhood Obesity (ST-NEPCO), which integrated Trans-theoretical Model (TTM) for behavioural changes in the development of contents that consists of a series of infographics to enhance nutritional counselling.
METHODS
A two-armed randomized controlled trial (RCT) of parallel design will be used to determine the effectiveness of ST-NEPCO. Based on purposive sampling, parents, or caregivers of obese children will be approached via the online platform. All participants will be randomly assigned to either the intervention group (IG) (received the ST-NEPCO) or control group (CG) (received routine care for the management of childhood obesity). The intervention will be conducted for a duration of 24 weeks. Anthropometric and body composition measurements will be conducted physically at baseline, at 12 weeks and at 24 weeks. Meanwhile, information on physical activity and dietary intake will be captured and the questionnaires will be delivered to the participants via online platform for every visit.
RESULTS
An intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis will be performed by including all randomized participants into the analysis. General Linear Model (GLM) for repeated measure procedures will be carried out to determine the effects of intervention between treatment groups on the main and specific outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS
The expected result of this study will provide an evidence-based educational package that can be specifically designed to augment the management of childhood obesity.
CLINICALTRIAL
The study protocol has been registered in the ClinicalTrials.gov website (REGISTRATION
NUMBER: NCT04884451).