Inhibitory Control and Pediatric Weight Management

Kurbo is a structured behavioral weight management program for youth that focuses on diet, physical activity and mindset skills and is based on the traffic light diet developed at Stanford University. The dietary approach is based on creating an energy deficit diet to produce weight loss while also being attentive to the quality of the calories consumed. Foods are categorized into the colors of a traffic light signal based on their nutritional and caloric content, such that youth are encouraged to eat more of green and yellow foods, and less of red foods. Participants will log their daily food intake and self-monitor dietary and physical activity behaviors, incorporating behavior substitution and habit formation. Participants will also have 15 minute weekly individualized coaching sessions.

In addition to Kurbo, participants will be asked to engage in daily cognitive training using the PolyRules! app for three months. They will be instructed to start with 20-min of daily cognitive training and to progressively increase their training time to 30-min.