Abstract: Although family-based interventions have been suggested as promising approaches for
preventing and treating pediatric obesity, available studies failed to include the whole family in its
own natural environment and routine. This paper aims to detail the development, implementation,
and evaluation phases of the ProxOb home-based, family-centered program and present its feasibility
and early results. ProxOb provides families with a 6-month multidisciplinary, home-based, and
family-centered intervention followed by an 18-month maintenance phase. A global psychosocial,
clinical, and behavior evaluation was conducted at baseline (T0) at the end of the 6-month intervention
(T1) and after the 18-month maintenance phase (T2). A total of 130 families with at least one child
with obesity completed the ProxOb program so far, and more than 90% of them also presented at least
one parent with overweight or obesity. Being part of a single-parent family seemed to increase the
chance of completing the intervention (63.0% vs. 33.3% in the drop-outers subgroup, p = 0.03). The
BMI z-score for children with obesity (T0 = 4.38 ± 1.05; T1 = 4.06 ± 1.07; T2 = 4.29 ± 1.12) significantly
decreased between T0 and T1, followed by weight regain at T2. ProxOb proposes a feasible and
replicable real-life approach to address childhood obesity while involving the children’s family
Researchers
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Jean-Philippe Chaput
Senior Scientist, CHEO Research Institute
