Objective To examine the effectiveness of a primary care–based obesity intervention over the first year (6 intervention contacts) of a planned 2-year study.
Design Cluster randomized controlled trial.
Setting Ten pediatric practices, 5 intervention and 5 usual care.
Participants Four hundred seventy-five children aged 2 to 6 years with body mass index (BMI) in the 95th percentile or higher or 85th to less than 95th percentile if at least 1 parent was overweight; 445 (93%) had 1-year outcomes.
Intervention Intervention practices received primary care restructuring, and families received motivational interviewing by clinicians and educational modules targeting television viewing and fast food and sugar-sweetened beverage intake.
Outcome Measures Change in BMI and obesity-related behaviors from baseline to 1 year.
Results Compared with usual care, intervention participants had a smaller, nonsignificant change in BMI (–0.21; 95% confidence interval [CI], –0.50 to 0.07; P = .15), greater decreases in television viewing (–0.36 h/d; 95% CI, –0.64 to –0.09; P = .01), and slightly greater decreases in fast food (–0.16 serving/wk; 95% CI, –0.33 to 0.01; P = .07) and sugar-sweetened beverage (–0.22 serving/d; 95% CI, –0.52 to 0.08; P = .15) intake. In post hoc analyses, we observed significant effects on BMI among girls (–0.38; 95% CI, –0.73 to –0.03; P = .03) but not boys (0.04; 95% CI, –0.55 to 0.63; P = .89) and among participants in households with annual incomes of $50 000 or less (–0.93; 95% CI, –1.60 to –0.25; P = .01) but not in higher-income households (0.02; 95% CI, –0.30 to 0.33; P = .92).
Conclusion After 1 year, the High Five for Kids intervention was effective in reducing television viewing but did not significantly reduce BMI.
Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00377767