Role of Parenting Skills and Parenting Style in Pediatric Weight Loss Programs

Pediatric overweight has nearly tripled in the past several decades and while family-based behavioral weight control programs are the mainstay of treatment, there is considerable variability in their outcomes. Parents play an important role in the success of their children, particularly by implementing new behavioral skills. However recent evidence has also suggested that parenting style, or the way a parent interacts with their child and provides emotional support and discipline, may be another key element in pediatric weight control. Our goal is to evaluate the role of specific parenting (behavioral) skills and parenting style in the success of children enrolled in a standard family-based behavioral weight control intervention. Our goal is to examine whether specific parenting (behavioral) skills and parenting style change during the intervention and whether or not this change is related to changes in the child's BMI z-score.

Inclusion criteria

• children between and including the ages of 8-12 years old
• child BMI >= 85th percentile
• parent willing to attend all treatment meetings
• parent and child must be able to speak, read, and understand English

Exclusion criteria

• a family member who is participating in another weight loss program
• the child has any serious medical problem that would limit his/her participation in the study, for example, gastrointestinal diseases, cardiac disease, immune compromised state, chronic steroid use or other medication that impacts weight, developmental delays.
• child with serious food allergies that would compromise adherence to dietary recommendations
• any family member has a major psychiatric disease or organic brain syndrome
• family is going to move outside the metropolitan area within the time frame of the study