Development and Feasibility of an Obesity Prevention Intervention for Adolescent African American Daughters and Their Mothers

Abstract

African American (AA) girls and women having disproportionately higher rates of obesity than their racial/ethnic counterparts. There is an urgent need to address overweight and obesity in AA girls through preventive interventions that enhance lifestyle physical activity (PA) and improve dietary behaviors in middle adolescence. Middle adolescence represents a unique and important opportunity to strengthen the daughter/mother bond and improve healthy behaviors such as PA and dietary intake. Because of the developmental and cultural complexities of adolescence, it is essential to include mothers, however, this approach is understudied in the literature. This pre-pilot study--- Black Girls Move was conducted using a 12-week pre-post within-subjects design to assess a) feasibility of conducting the study b) feasibility of delivering the intervention and c) program satisfaction by AA 9th and 10th grade daughters and their mothers.  Twenty-two dyads were recruited, 14 dyads completed baseline assessments, however, only eight daughters and their mothers attended the first session and were retained for the entire study. All dyads had valid objective and self-reported PA data, however, two of eight daughters and one mother provided  self-reported dietary data that were considered invalid. All individual sessions were rated highly.  Excellent attendance, retention, and satisfaction among participants suggest that we succeeded in conveying the importance of healthy PA and dietary behavior change. This lifestyle intervention would be strengthened by modifications to recruitment and retention as well as incorporation of a computerized dietary assessment tool, a tailored dietary app for self-monitoring, and increased photo-based and group homework activities.