Building Healthy Families (BHF) is a family- based healthy weight program for children and their families. Key behavior change strategies including goal setting for both lifestyle modification and weight loss, self-monitoring, rewards/contingency management, role modeling, and stimulus control/ modifying the environment.
Building Healthy Families has demonstrated success for both children and adults. Children with obesity have lost more than 5% of their body mass in twelve weeks while adult weight loss has averaged 14 lbs in 12 weeks with some losing up to 40 lbs.
Building Healthy Families has been packaged for other small, or rural communities to implement. Our approach was to develop a package for communities that may not have the full range of expertise but have strong interest in addressing the issue.
Our packaged BHF program includes online training resources and implementation strategies for community implementation teams to successfully implement the program in their community. Online training modules were created for each implementation team role including; program coordinator and nutrition, physical activity, lifestyle and recruitment coordinators. The packaged program includes presentation materials, handouts, and lesson plans that increase the likelihood that the delivery of the program will be consistent across communities. The Online Training and Program Resources includes a modular approach providing training modules for program facilitators, knowledge checks to ensure mastery of program components, recruitment resources for community, school and clinical settings, all delivery materials, embedded fidelity assessments for quality assurance, and a data portal to track participant success.
Ideally, each community interested in implementing BHF should have a team consisting of representatives from community organizations that can assist in the implementation of the program as well as the recruitment of families to join BHF. This could come from the local health department, hospital, school district, extension office and/or local recreation centers. Roles include a local pediatrician or family practitioner to assist in securing medical referrals and overseeing any health issues that may arise. Support from the local school districts and school nursing staff and local health clinics are necessary for recruitment and screening for identification of potential participants. A local social worker could be engaged to assist in the identification of low-income, at risk-children. Program delivery team will include a dietitian or individual with experience in healthy eating promotions (extension, health department), someone with background in behavior modification strategies (health promotion or psychology) and a physical activity program coordinator. This person should have experience implementing activities with children (parks and recreation, YMCA, youth fitness instructor, etc).
BHF includes a minimum of 32 contact hours consisting of three main program components: nutrition education, behavior modification, and physical activity. All program materials are at an easy to read level for adults and children. Nutrition education content includes the Traffic Light Eating Plan, energy balance, grocery store tour, portion sizes, reading food labels, healthy kitchen assessment, dining out, snacking, whole grains, fruit and vegetable taste testing, modifying recipes, protein, and beverages. Behavior modification complements nutrition education. The physical activity component includes non-sport oriented games focused on fun and family interaction with goals for steps/day of activity. Education is provided to children and parents together and independently based on the topic and depth of information. Participants and parents are expected to attend 12 continuous weeks of education (2 hours/session) followed by 6 relapse prevention refresher sessions out to one year.
If you are interested in learning more or want to be contacted email bhf@nebraska.edu or visit buildinghealthyfamilies.us. If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to call us at 308-865-8336. The UNK Physical Activity and Wellness Lab is located on the 2nd floor of the Wellness Center connected to Cushing Coliseum.
A team from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the University of Nebraska Medical Center received funding to move the successful Building Healthy Families (BHF), an evidence-based childhood obesity treatment program, into a user-friendly electronic package of training and program materials. Healthcare, community, or public health organizations can use this packaged program in small towns and rural regions in the Great Plains to implement into their own communities. When delivered by researchers and community partners at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, BHF participants significantly improved their weight status. University of Nebraska will package BHF for successful adaptation and adoption in other rural communities and micropolitan areas to decrease the number of adults and children with obesity. To learn more about the CDC's Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD) Project 3.0 go here.
