Pre/Post Evaluation of Living Green and Healthy for Teens (LiGHT)

Living Green, Healthy for Teens (LiGHT v2) is an engaging online, individualized, gamified lifestyle management program for youth focused on initiating long-term behaviour-change in youth and their families in order to help them shift from an unhealthy lifestyle toward better health habits in three areas: physical activity, nutrition and sedentary behaviour. The program aims both to treat and prevent childhood obesity, as well as to mitigate increased risk for metabolic and non-metabolic complications associated with obesity in the short and long-term. Because parents have been shown to be of primary importance in treating childhood obesity, LiGHT v2 will educate and engage parents as well as youth. Parents will receive separate but complementary content, intended to guide them as they shop for and prepare food and make behavioural changes within their families. The content for parents will be delivered using the same social software that facilitates peer-to-peer conversations with teen users (forums), but the channels will be gated, so teens and parents each have their own space. LiGHT v2's social features will help parents strategize and empathize with other families facing similar challenges. The program will be evaluated using three separate study groups. This protocol describes the first of the three. A sample of 1400 families (one parent and one child) recruited by an online web panel will be screened for eligibility (i.e., children aged 13-17 and their parents). Of these, it is expected that approximately 500 will meet our eligibility criteria and express an interest in enrolling in the study, and of these, about 50% will actually enroll in the study. This evaluation will use a prospective design that integrates pre- and post-evaluations. All families will be given access to LiGHT v2.1 to use from their home computer and prospectively followed for 4.5 months. Parents will complete questionnaires at baseline and after 4.5 months, which assess behaviours, sociodemographics, mediators of behaviour change, and satisfaction with the app. Teens will complete questionnaires at baseline, and after 1 and 4.5 months, which assess behaviours, satisfaction with the app, mediators of behaviour change, and knowledge for recommendations for healthy behaviours. Parent/child usage will also be monitored using web-analytic tools in order to understand how users interact with LiGHT.