A Mobile Phone App to Promote Healthy Diet and Physical Activity in 2.5-year-olds

A Mobile Phone App to Promote Healthy Diet and Physical Activity in 2.5-year-olds - a Randomised Controlled Trial in Primary Child Health Care.

Childhood obesity is still a major global health issue. The preschool age (2-5 years) has been identified as a critical period to intervene, Mobile technology (mHealth) has been successful for weight loss and behavior changes in adults. This proposed randomized controlled trial aims to assess the effectiveness of an 6-month intervention program, the Mobile-based intervention to stop obesity in preschoolers (MINISTOP) 2.0 mobile phone app integrated in primary child health care for parents of children aged 2.5 years. The MINISTOP 2.0 app is built on the previous MINISTOP 1.0 app. Five hundred children will be recruited at their routine visit at 2.5 years of age and after baseline measures randomized to the intervention or control group. In addition, the investigators will assess acceptability, feasibility and appropriateness of the app by parents and primary child health care nurses.

Inclusion criteria:

-Children at the routine visit at 2.5-3 years of age at selected primary child health centers in Sweden

Exclusion criteria:

• Children diagnosed with neurological or endocrine diseases
• Children who have a parent suffering from a serious physical or psychological disease making the study too demanding for the family
• Children from families who will not be able to understand the content of the app (i.e. do not speak Swedish, English, Somali or Arabic)