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Reducing Obesity Through Play Among Toddlers: Tiny Steps to Health (TSHS) Study

University of Houston · with National Institutes of Health (NIH), Baylor College of Medicine · NCT06918821

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Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 1–3 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
300
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
May 17, 2025
Record last updated
May 5, 2026

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

The purpose of this study is to test various ways to help toddlers develop healthy eating and activity behaviors. Parents and toddlers, who participate in this research will be randomly assigned to either 1) continue their lifestyle behaviors for 10-weeks and then receive a health club membership for 1-month, 2) attend a health promotion playgroup together for 10 weeks, or 3) to attend an educational class for parents while toddlers are in childcare for 10-weeks. Physical measures of toddlers (height, weight, dietary intake, activity) will be collected. Parent-report surveys with questions about parenting, toddler diet, toddler temperament, food security status, demographic qualities, and satisfaction with group assignment will be collected. Last, the interactions between parents and toddlers will be observed and assessed during short play tasks via Zoom. All measures will be collected immediately upon signing up for the study (week 0), 10-weeks later (post), and 24-weeks after signing up for the study.

Being studied: Healthy Toddler Parent Group (HTPG); Families Understanding Nutrition and Physically Active Lifestyles (FUNPALs) Playgroup

Conditions: Childhood Obesity

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria

Inclusion criteria

  • Parents: Primary custodian (i.e., legal guardian) of a toddler, >18 years, have regular and frequent access to internet, fluent in English.
  • Toddlers: >/=18 and \</=36 months of age, and walking.

Exclusion criteria include

  • Parents or toddlers who have mental or physical conditions that would prevent engagement in nutrition, physical activity, play, or instructional activities in a group setting or families unwilling to commit to the whole program (e.g., planning to move) will be excluded because participants may be randomly assigned to group interventions where engagement in these activities will be expected.
  • Parents who are not fluent in English will be excluded because this study was developed, and pilot tested on an English-speaking population. All study materials are in English, the interventions will be offered in English, and most of the surveys are not available or have been validated for non-English speaking audiences.
  • Parents who are not willing or able to participate in parent-toddler interaction assessments via Zoom will be excluded. This assessment is an important study variable.
  • Parents who are not willing to be recorded will be excluded because all Families Understanding Nutrition and Physically Active LIfestyles (FUNPALs) Playgroup sessions will be recorded for facilitator supervision purposes, and the parent-toddler interaction assessments will be recorded for later coding.
  • Only one toddler and one parent per family will be eligible, but all children and siblings within a household will be able to attend playgroups or childcare while parents are in Healthy Toddler Parent Group (HTPG) classes.
  • Parents and toddlers who received 1 or more sessions of the FUNPALs Playgroup or the HTPG. This study will be running 1 cohort per quarter for 4 years, so it is possible that families may drop out and want to re-enroll in a later cohort or enroll when younger siblings are eligible. They will not be eligible. Also, families from the community will be invited to participate in practice sessions of FUNPALs or HTPG to train the facilitators. These families will not be eligible to participate in the study.

Recruiting US locations

  • University of Houston

    Houston, TX 77204

    Site contact: Tracey Ledoux, PhD · 713-743-1870 · taledoux@central.uh.edu

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Tracey L Ledoux, PhD · 713-743-1870 · taledoux@central.uh.edu
  • Craig Johnston, PhD · 713-743-0613 · cajohn25@central.uh.edu
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Reducing Obesity Through Play Among Toddlers: Tiny Steps to Health… (NCT06918821) | Bored Studies