Parent and Child Perceived Barriers to Health Behavior Change in a Family-Centered Obesity Intervention

Abstract

Purpose

We sought to explore perceived barriers to engaging in weight-related health behavior change among parent child dyads.

Design

This is a secondary analysis of data from a cluster-randomized controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of Fitline telephonic coaching vs Fitline workbook at improving weight-related health behaviors and body mass index for children 8-12 years old with overweight and obesity.

Setting

The trial which the present data comes from was conducted within 20 pediatric primary care practices in Central Massachusetts.

Sample

Data from 499 parent-child dyads were included.

Measures

Barriers to weight-related health behavior changes were assessed via 10 survey items answered by parents and the enrolled child at baseline, 6- and 12-month.

Analysis

We used frequencies to describe the distribution of parent and child reported behavior-change barriers as well as McNemar’s and Bowker’s tests to compare distributions of behavior-change barriers at baseline and change in report of behavior-change barriers at 6-month.

Results

We found that barriers to weight-related health behavior change varied within parent child dyads with up to 30% of dyads disagreeing on behavior-change barrier perception at baseline. Additionally, up to 37% of dyads were not aligned on reported change in barriers to health behavior change at 6-month.

Conclusion

Our findings support the potential benefit of integrating behavior-change barrier assessment from both the parent and child perspectives into intervention delivery when developing and tailoring family-centered interventions.