Abstract
Objective
To examine parental perspectives/rankings of the most important weight-management
clinical practices and to determine whether preferences/rankings differ when parents
disagree that their child is overweight.
Methods
We performed mixed-methods analysis of a 32-question survey of parents of 2- to 18-year-old
overweight children assessing parental agreement that their child is overweight, the
single most important thing providers can do to improve weight status, ranking American
Academy of Pediatrics–recommended clinical practices, and preferred follow-up interval.
Four independent reviewers analyzed open-response data to identify qualitative themes/subthemes.
Multivariable analyses examined parental rankings, preferred follow-up interval, and
differences by agreement with their child's overweight assessment.
Results
Thirty-six percent of 219 children were overweight, 42% obese, and 22% severely obese;
16% of parents disagreed with their child's overweight assessment. Qualitative analysis
of the most important practice to help overweight children yielded 10 themes; unique
to parents disagreeing with their children's overweight assessments was “change weight-status
assessments.” After adjustment, the 3 highest-ranked clinical practices included,
“check for weight-related problems,” “review growth chart,” and “recommend general
dietary changes” (all P < .01); parents disagreeing with their children's overweight assessments ranked “review
growth chart” as less important and ranked “reducing screen time” and “general activity
changes” as more important. The mean preferred weight-management follow-up interval
(10–12 weeks) did not differ by agreement with children's overweight assessments.
Conclusions
Parents prefer weight-management strategies that prioritize evaluating weight-related
problems, growth-chart review, and regular follow-up. Parents who disagree that their
child is overweight want changes in how overweight is assessed. Using parent-preferred
weight-management strategies may prove useful in improving child weight status.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 17, 2015
Accepted:
September 8,
2015
Received:
April 29,
2015
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
