Development And Pilot Testing Of The Be Unstoppable In Life Together (BUILT) On-line Family Lifestyle Program

Children in underserved communities are at risk for poor health outcomes. The Be Unstoppable in Life (BUILT) program is designed to empower families to adopt and sustain healthy sleep, exercise, nutrition, and screen routines that optimize child behavior and family cohesion. PURPOSE: This study assessed preliminary feasibility and accessibility of an 8-week remote version of BUILT program for families of 6-12-year-old children enrolled in Chicago Park District (CPD) programming. METHODS: 21 parent-child dyads were recruited from 3 park sites and on-line during fall 2022 and spring 2023. Families were given access to the BUILT online platform, activity trackers, health coaching by University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) students and CPD staff, and 15 home challenges related to sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Engagement was monitored during the 8-weeks. Semi-structured interviews were taken with parents, UIC students, and CPD staff at posttest. RESULTS: Parents attended 77% of the coaching sessions. Families completed 70% of nutrition challenges, 63% of sleep challenges, and 57% of exercise challenges. Overall challenge completion rate was 63%. Completion rates dropped between week 1 (90%) and week 7 (36%). Families struggled with remote activity tracker engagement (34% completion rate). Semi-structured interviews showed that future iterations should reduce program duration, incorporate in-person activities, reduce the number and complexity of challenges, provide food for nutrition lessons, ensure challenges hold the interest of all children, and improve coordination between UIC students and CPD staff. CONCLUSIONS: This 8-week on-line family lifestyle program demonstrated some initial promise but requires substantial adaptations to sustain program engagement. An in-person 6-week version of BUILT, BUILT Kids, was offered to (N = 152) 6-8-year-old children at 5 parks in summer of 2023. This allowed us to develop and pilot a 6-week in-person curriculum. A streamlined 6-week hybrid on-line/in-person version of BUILT is in progress at 5 parks with 12 simplified challenges, weekly multi-family in-person cooking and physical literacy challenges, and no remote activity trackers. Our aim in the hybrid iteration is to exceed 75% home challenge completion rate across domains of sleep, nutrition, and exercise. BUILT is funded by the UIC Center for Health Equity Research, the UIC Chancellor's Office, and the Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion.