Wildcat wellness coaching feasibility trial: protocol for home-based health behavior mentoring in girls

BACKGROUND: Childhood obesity is a major public health problem, with one third of America’s children classified as either overweight or obese. Obesity prevention and health promotion programs using components such as wellness coaching and home-based interventions have shown promise, but there is a lack of published research evaluating the impact of a combined home-based and wellness coaching intervention for obesity prevention and health promotion in young girls. The main objective of this study is to test the feasibility of such an intervention on metrics related to recruitment, intervention delivery, and health-related outcome assessments. The secondary outcome is to evaluate the possibility of change in health-related psychosocial, behavioral, and biomedical outcomes in our sample of participants. METHODS/DESIGN: Forty girls who are overweight or obese (aged 8–13 years) will be recruited from a Midwestern college town. Participants will be recruited through posted flyers, newspaper advertisements, email, and social media. The volunteer convenience sample of girls will be randomized to one of two home-based wellness coaching interventions: a general health education condition or a healthy eating physical activity skills condition. Trained female wellness coaches will conduct weekly hour-long home visits for 12 consecutive weeks. Assessments will occur at baseline, post-intervention (3 months after baseline), and follow-up (6 months after baseline) and will include height, weight, waist circumference, body composition, pulmonary function, blood pressure, systemic inflammation, physical activity (Actical accelerometer), and self-reported survey measures (relevant to fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and quality of life). DISCUSSION: This study will evaluate the feasibility of home-based wellness coaching interventions for overweight and obese girls and secondarily assess the preliminary impact on health-related psychosocial, behavioral, and biomedical outcomes. Results will provide information regarding the feasibility of this new model for use in girls as an approach to reduce the burden of overweight and obesity toward the prevention of chronic disease. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01845480 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40814-016-0066-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.