Obesity clinical trials at UCSF

Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is a major contributor to childhood obesity, caries, fatty liver disease, and Type 2 diabetes. Latino children are more likely to consume sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and to suffer from all of the aforementioned conditions. Reading out loud to children from birth through age 5 is critical for the promotion of language and early literacy skills. Children whose parents read aloud to them are more likely to start school with the skills required for early reading success. This is important as reading proficiency in third grade is the best predictor of high school graduation and career success. Latino children are less likely to be read to than non-Hispanic white children and at higher risk of entering kindergarten without critical early literacy skills. Thus, there is a pressing need for interventions to reduce SSB consumption among Latino children as well as interventions that promote reading out loud. Primary care is an optimal setting for such interventions. However, multiple demands on providers' time make it difficult to rely on in-person interventions. For this reason, it is critical to test intervention designs that do not rely directly on health care providers and that can be delivered remotely if needed. The investigators have developed two m-health interventions for Latino parents, one that promotes optimal beverage consumption patterns and one that promotes reading out loud to children. The purpose of this study is to test the impact of these interventions on child beverage intake patterns and the frequency with which parents read to children.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the impact of a primary care based intervention to promote optimal feeding, screen time and sleep practices among low-income Latino infants and toddlers. Infants and caregivers will receive brief health education and coaching sessions from health educators at primary care visits in the first two years of life as well as two text messages per week with health information and tips. Half of the participants will receive the Futuros Fuertes 2.0 intervention that includes health coaching and education on infant feeding, screen time and sleep (intervention group). The other half will receive health coaching and education on safety, home management of childhood illnesses, and promotion of language development (control group). We will look at the impact of the Futuros Fuertes 2.0 intervention on child BMI and various health behaviors.