Reboot Kids: feasibility of an online healthy eating intervention, delivered to parents of childhood cancer survivors aged 2-16 years old

Reboot models a previous intervention aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable intake in over 400 Australian children (who did not receive cancer treatment). Following a parent-led interventional model, the parent (not the child) receives the intervention and is responsible for regulating the home food environment and acting as an important role model, which maintains children’s eating behaviors. To reduce geographical barriers to participation, Reboot Kids is delivered to parents at home using a combination of web-based modules and telephone sessions. In line with the original intervention, Reboot will be delivered to only one parent by a trained health professional (either a registered psychologist or dietitian) using 4 web-based modules and 4 telephone sessions. Each web-based module takes approximately 30 to 45-minutes to complete. Parents will be encouraged to complete one web-based module every two-weeks, over eight-weeks. During each two-week module, parents are encouraged to choose specific and practical strategies suggested during the module, to try at home. The web-based modules focus on important dietary information including national age-based dietary guidelines (e.g. child serving sizes/ recommended servings each day) and practical strategies for encouraging children to eat more fruit and vegetables. Before starting the program, parents are encouraged to read a ‘getting ready’ module, which explores the importance of healthy eating for children who have completed cancer treatment and the impact of cancer treatment on children’s taste functioning, food preferences and parent management of children’s dietary intake. In Module 1, parents are encouraged to set specific program goals, limit the availability and accessibility of non-core foods in the home and identify opportunities to increase parent providing of fruit and vegetables to children throughout the day. In Module 2, parents are encouraged to explore their home food environment, including meal planning (planning what fruit and vegetables to busy), accessibility of ready-to-eat vegetables in the home, how often families: eat together and without TV or screens, maintain a positive and relaxed atmosphere (don’t pressure children to eat). Module 3 explores the importance of role-modelling healthy eating to children by eating them regularly and the different responsibilities between children and adults with regards to feeding and eating. Practical strategies are encouraged such as getting children involved in the kitchen and preparing vegetables and meals in a creative, child-friendly way. The last module reviews the topics presented in modules 1 to 3 and explores barriers to maintaining a healthy home food environment. Parents will be offered up to four telephone sessions, every two-weeks, for up to 45-minutes. The purpose of each telephone session is to assess the participant’s psychological stress, address any issues the participant might have with the program, identify, plan and review parent strategies over the next two-weeks, highlight key educational information and assist with participant goal setting and barriers to completing home-based activities/strategies. The program is tailored to each family as much as possible. The trial website requires participants to insert information on their child such as their age and gender. The website then provides tailored feedback on the number of fruit and vegetable servings required for a child of that age and gender. During the telephone sessions, participants will receive tailored advice from a dietitian or trained research officer based on the participants particular goals. The interventionist will also help parents to identify the most appropriate program strategies for achieving their goals and collaborate with the parent to identify specific and achievable steps for practicing these strategies at home. Participant adherence to the website will be assessed as a measure of intervention feasibility using google analytics. This tool will collect data on the number of times a parent views a web-page, the average time spent on each web-page, and parent completion of interactive module activities.