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