Table 1 Study inclusion and exclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria | |
|---|---|
1 | Young people aged 13-17 years living in Greater London |
2 | Obese, defined as BMI > 98th centile for BMI using the UK 1990 growth reference [19]. |
Exclusion criteria | |
1 | Participants with significant mental health problems or undergoing mental health treatment. |
2 | Other chronic illness, known secondary obesity, monogenic obesity syndrome or use of medications known to promote obesity. Young people with asthma will be included in the study so long as they have not had more than one course of oral steroids in the preceding 3 months (where course is less than or equal to 5 days), or are on more than the first starting dose of inhaled steroids as per British Thoracic Society Guidelines. |
3 | Participants with significant learning disability |
4 | Participants with lack of command of English sufficient to render them unable to participate effectively in the planned intervention. The great majority of eligible young people from black or minority ethnic groups in this population have good command of English. Given the importance of standardising the intervention, it will not be possible to use interpreters to enable parents with poor English to participate. To allow as many young people as possible to participate while maintaining the external validity of the study, we will allow another relative with good English to participate alongside the young person (if they wish it). |
5 | Participation in behavioural weight management programmes in the past 12 months. This does not include participation in commercial programmes such as Weight Watchers. |
6 | Young people with BMI > = 40 kg/m2. We exclude this group as they are unlikely to benefit from a community based intervention such as HELP. |