The Children in Action Feasibility Study

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT01697124

Acronym

CIA

Enrollment

274

Registered

2012-10-02

Start date

2007-09-30

Completion date

2009-08-31

Last updated

2012-10-02

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Motor Activity, Obesity

Keywords

Physical activity, children, Head Start, SPARK-EC

Brief summary

The Children in Action (CIA) program was a five month physical activity intervention. This intervention was a feasibility study with 3- to 5-year-olds enrolled in four Head Start centers. After baseline assessment, centers were matched by ethnicity and for number of participants and randomly assigned to either the intervention or the control condition. A total of 224 preschool children were randomly selected across the four centers. To evaluate the efficacy of the CIA intervention, the change in physical activity, gross motor skills and weight during the awake time and used mixed effect time-series regression models was compared. Observations did not show a statistical difference between intervention and control groups in physical activity level during the awake time, gross motor development or weight status. It was demonstrated that it is feasible to conduct the SPARK-EC curriculum among preschool children attending Head Start Centers but that an increased dose and/or longer intervention duration will be required to impact gross motor skills, weight status and physical activity levels during this critical early childhood development stage.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALSPARK-EC

The CIA study was a 5 month physical activity change intervention that utilized the SPARK-EC curriculum as the intervention. The SPARK-EC curriculum was designed to be a quality, comprehensive physical activity program for the preschool setting. Pre-and Post-intervention assessments were conducted

Study design

Allocation

Intervention model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

3 Years to 5 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* 3-5 years old * attends Head Start * African-American * Hispanic-American

Exclusion criteria

* older than 5 years old * does not attend Head Start * race/ethnicity other than African-American or Hispanic-American * has a disability or handicap that would prevent them from participating in physical activities

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Change from baseline in physical activity at post-intervention.	8 months	Mini-Mitter Actical, an accelerometer-based activity monitor, was used to assess physical activity of the preschool children. Unit of measurement was mean percentage of time spent in sedentary, light and moderate-vigorous physical activity each day.

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Change from baseline in gross motor skills at post intervention.	8 months	Gross motor skills were measured using the Test of Gross Motor Development. Unit of measurement was the Total Gross Motor Development percentile rank.
Body Mass Index	8 months	Body Mass Index was calculated using height and weight measures collected on the preschool children. Unit of measurement was kilograms (wt.)/meters squared (ht.).

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026