Objectives. We investigated the body mass index (BMI; weight in pounds/[height in inches]2 × 703) of parents whose children participated in Shape Up Somerville (SUS), a community-based participatory research study that altered household, school, and community environments to prevent and reduce childhood obesity.
Methods. SUS was a nonrandomized controlled trial with 30 participating elementary schools in 3 Massachusetts communities that occurred from 2002 to 2005. It included first-, second-, and third-grade children. We used an inverse probability weighting estimator adjusted for clustering effects to isolate the influence of SUS on parent (n = 478) BMI. The model’s dependent variable was the change in pre- and postintervention parent BMI.
Results. SUS was significantly associated with decreases in parent BMIs. SUS decreased treatment parents’ BMIs by 0.411 points (95% confidence interval = −0.725, −0.097) relative to control parents.
Conclusions. The benefits of a community-based environmental change childhood obesity intervention can spill over to parents, resulting in decreased parental BMI. Further research is warranted to examine the effects of this type of intervention on parental health behaviors and health outcomes.
- Edward Coffield, Allison J. Nihiser, and Bettylou Sherry are with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Christina D. Economos is with the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA.
