Internal Medicine-Pediatric Physician Resident, PGY2 Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State Univeristy Galloway, Ohio, United States
Background: Eating home cooked meals is associated with lower rates of obesity in childhood and beyond. However, Families face barriers to home cooking. Addressing health beliefs (beliefs about how a behavior influences health-related outcomes) and control beliefs (how able a person feels to perform a specific behavior) have been found to increase the likelihood of home cooking. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Bright Futures Guidelines recommend nutrition counseling at well child checks but there are few clinic-based interventions that promote home cooking by families. Objective: To determine the impact of viewing nutrition education videos at well child visits on parents’ health and control beliefs regarding childhood nutrition and to increase the number of days parents cook meals at home. Secondarily, to assess barriers families face regarding nutrition. Design/Methods: The study was approved by the institution’s IRB. A short, 1–3-minute nutrition education video was offered to families waiting to be seen at 1-, 9-, 15-, and 18-month well-child visits. Families were recruited from a continuity, primary care clinic for Internal Medicine - Pediatrics residents. The clinic serves a population that predominately have Medicaid insurance. Four videos from a large repository of videos from the academic center’s Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition were selected based on their content and alignment in potentially changing either health beliefs or control beliefs around child nutrition and cooking meals at home. Families completed a pre/post- survey that included items related to families’ intention to cook at home, health beliefs on the impact of childhood nutrition on long-term health, control beliefs on cooking at home despite constraints, and determining barriers families face currently to cook at home (e.g., cost, time, pleasing all family members). Data collection is ongoing and will be completed by February 2024 and analyzed by end of March 2024. Pre/Post Analysis of the change in families’ intention to prepare meals at home will be conducted via Repeated Measures ANOVA.
