UMMS Affiliation
Department of Medicine, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine
Publication Date
2010-09-29
Document Type
Article
Subjects
*Choice Behavior; *Computers, Handheld; *Diet; *Exercise; Female; Humans; Male; *Research Design; *Risk Reduction Behavior; United States
Disciplines
Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Suboptimal diet and physical inactivity are prevalent, co-occurring chronic disease risk factors, yet little is known about how to maximize multiple risk behavior change. Make Better Choices, a randomized controlled trial, tests competing hypotheses about the optimal way to promote healthy change in four bundled risk behaviors: high saturated fat intake, low fruit and vegetable intake, low physical activity, and high sedentary leisure screen time. The study aim is to determine which combination of two behavior change goals--one dietary, one activity--yields greatest overall healthy lifestyle change.
METHODS/DESIGN: Adults (n = 200) with poor quality diet and sedentary lifestyle will be recruited and screened for study eligibility. Participants will be trained to record their diet and activities onto a personal data assistant, and use it to complete two weeks of baseline. Those who continue to show all four risk behaviors after baseline recording will be randomized to one of four behavior change prescriptions: 1) increase fruits and vegetables and increase physical activity, 2) decrease saturated fat and increase physical activity, 3) increase fruits and vegetable and decrease saturated fat, or 4) decrease saturated fat and decrease sedentary activity. They will use decision support feedback on the personal digital assistant and receive counseling from a coach to alter their diet and activity during a 3-week prescription period when payment is contingent upon meeting behavior change goals. They will continue recording on an intermittent schedule during a 4.5-month maintenance period when payment is not contingent upon goal attainment. The primary outcome is overall healthy lifestyle change, aggregated across all four risk behaviors.
DISCUSSION: The Make Better Choices trial tests a disseminable lifestyle intervention supported by handheld technology. Findings will fill a gap in knowledge about optimal goal prescription to facilitate simultaneous diet and activity change. Results will shed light on which goal prescription maximizes healthful lifestyle change. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Trials Gov. Identifier NCT00113672.
Rights and Permissions
© 2010 Spring et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
DOI of Published Version
10.1186/1471-2458-10-586
Source
BMC Public Health. 2010 Sep 29;10:586. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
BMC public health
Related Resources
PubMed ID
20920275
Repository Citation
Spring, Bonnie J.; Schneider, Kristin L.; McFadden, H. G.; Vaughn, Jocelyn; Kozak, Andrea T.; Smith, Malaina; Moller, Arlen C.; Epstein, Leonard; Russell, Stephanie W.; DeMott, Andrew; and Hedeker, Donald, "Make Better Choices (MBC): study design of a randomized controlled trial testing optimal technology-supported change in multiple diet and physical activity risk behaviors" (2010). Open Access Articles. 2290.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/2290
Included in
Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Life Sciences Commons