Adaptation of a Parenting Intervention for Substance Use Prevention to Promote Healthy Eating Among Latino Families and Youth

Background: Families Preparing the New Generation (FPNG) is an 8-lesson, school-based parenting intervention proven efficacious to increase parent-child communication and family functioning as a means to prevent substance use in Latino adolescents. Given the high prevalence of overweight/obesity among Latino youth, along with low adherence to dietary guidelines, there is an urgent need to support Latino parents in their effort to provide healthy eating for their adolescent children. This poster outlines the process undertaken to add nutrition content to the curriculum and create FPNG Plus.

Formative research: Five focus groups with 7^th grade students (3 with girls; 2 with boys) and 3 focus groups with parents who had previously participated in FPNG were conducted to inform the nutrition content added to FPNG Plus.

Curriculum adaptation: The curriculum adaptation team included expertise in development and delivery of culturally-relevant health interventions, nutrition, and social work. First, the team thoroughly reviewed the original FPNG facilitator and participant handbooks to identify where to add nutrition information. Next, the team developed outlines for two brand-new nutrition sessions. In the next stage, the facilitator script, lesson activities, parent workbook, and visual aids were developed in detail. After several iterations, two additional team members reviewed the new lessons to ensure content accuracy and cultural appropriateness. The last step involved incorporating additional nutrition content throughout the original lessons.

FPNG Plus nutrition content: The first nutrition lesson, “Introduction to Nutrition,” focuses on basic healthy eating concepts, such as the use of MyPlate and the Nutrition Label for food selection and meal planning. The second lesson, “Parenting and Healthy Eating,” focuses on parental roles around food and nutrition. Added content addresses students’ concerns about diet and their role in meal selection and food availability at home, as identified from the focus groups. It also addresses parents’ concerns about providing healthy foods, budgeting, as well as issues when parenting their children around eating. The original FPNG lessons include nutrition through role-play activities and case studies highlighting situations around eating that could result in disagreement between parents and their adolescent children, and by reminding parents weekly of the importance of including their children in family meal planning, and preparation.

Future directions: The new ten-lesson curriculum is being pilot-tested for feasibility and acceptability. Feedback from pilot study participants will be used to create a final version of FPNG Plus that will be tested in a randomized control trial beginning in January 2019.