Effects of parental involvement in behavioral weight loss therapy for preadolescents

Abstract

To examine the effects of parental involvement and family environment on weight loss in obese preadolescents, 40 dyads, consisting of an overweight parent and an overweight 9- to 13-year-old child, were assigned to parent-plus-child (n=16) or child-only (n=15) behavioral treatment groups or a waiting list control group (n=9). While children and parents in both treatment groups received complete written lessons, only children and parents in the parent-plus-child group also attended treatment sessions. Children in both treatment groups lost a significant amount of weight during treatment and maintained their losses through the 1-year follow-up period. In contrast, children in the control group gained a significant amount of weight by the 3-month follow-up. Dyads in the parent-plus-child group showed lower attrition, equivalent child weight reduction and maintenance, and better parental weight loss maintenance than dyads in the child-only group. These results and others obtained via self-report measures and intradyad correlations of weight change indicate that the family environment may play a very important role in treatment outcome achieved by behavioral weight loss therapy for preadolescents.