La Vida Buena Childhood Obesity Program

La Vida Buena is a Mariposa project to educate children and families about healthy eating and exercise habits. The Health providers at Mariposa Nogales and Rio Rico clinics will refer children between 5-8 years old who are overweight or obese and their parents. Each child must participate with a parent or adult caregiver who is at least 18 years old. Before the program begins, the participant will attend an informational consent/registration session where they will be asked to sign a consent form for themselves and their child if they want to participate. The study will ask for certain information from each participant in order to determine if the program is working. Each family will respond to a questionnaire at three points: at the beginning of the program, three months after beginning the program, and six months after beginning the program, for a total of six months. The questionnaire will include questions about fruit, vegetable and carbohydrate consumption, family behavior and habits regarding eating and exercise, moderate and vigorous physical activity, sedentary behavior, local foods and environment factors that impact the family. In addition, the child's weight will be measured at each time point. Participation in La Vida Buena will take 6 months. At the Nogales site, participants will be invited to a series of weekly classes over the course of 8 weeks that are being offered by the Mariposa clinic related to child healthy weight, exercise and nutrition. At the Rio Rico site, participants will be offered one face to face educational session about child healthy weight with Mariposa staff. Participants will be scheduled for BMI measurements and questionnaires three months after initiating the program, as well as six months after initiating the La Vida Buena Program.