PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON CHILD WEIGHT LOSS: PERCEPTION, WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE, AND BARRIERS

Parents are a primary contributor to the development of obesegenic behavior in youth. However, many parents do not perceive their child’s weight to be a problem, are not ready to make changes, and may be overwhelmed by obstacles to behavior change. PURPOSE: To examine relationships between parent perception of child weight, parental readiness to change weight control behaviors, and parental barriers to changing weight control behaviors. METHODS: Forty-eight parents of overweight (≤85th-95th percentile) and obese (≥95th percentile) 6-12 year old children were recruited to complete questionnaires on perception of their child’s weight, their stage of readiness to change behaviors for their child’s weight, barriers to engaging the child in weight control behaviors, and descriptive characteristics. Child height and weight were objectively measured and used to determine BMI percentile for age. RESULTS: Seventy-seven percent of parents misclassified their child’s weight status and 54.2% perceived their child as normal weight. Parental perception was significantly associated with parent stage of readiness to change (r=0.358, p=0.012). There was no relationship between parent perception of child weight, and parent stage of readiness to change to the parental barriers to changing behavior. Older parents (p=0.045), and married parents (p=0.025) were more likely to perceive their child had a weight problem. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing a parent’s awareness of their child’s weight status may benefit progression through the stages of behavior change. Furthermore, older parents and parents who are married may be more conscious of weight related issues in the family