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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
07:56

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

Exploring the basis for parents' negative reactions to being informed that their child is overweight

Fiona Gillison1, Fay Beck1, Joanna Lewitt2

  • 11 Department for Health, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.

Public Health Nutrition
|September 25, 2013
PubMed

Insights

Parents often reject feedback about their child's weight due to distrust in measurements and concerns about health and eating disorders. Improving communication strategies is key to better parental engagement in childhood obesity initiatives.

Area of Science:

  • Public Health
  • Childhood Obesity Research
  • Parental Engagement Strategies

Background:

  • Parental awareness is crucial for addressing childhood obesity.
  • Negative parental reactions to weight feedback can impede engagement with health services.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To understand parents' negative reactions to childhood weight feedback.
  • To inform the design of more acceptable services for parents.

Main Methods:

  • Qualitative analysis of open-ended survey responses from parents.
  • Postal questionnaire distributed to parents in one UK local authority.

Main Results:

  • 14% of eligible parents responded; 43/45 rejected the feedback.
  • Reasons for rejection included distrust in measurement, downplaying importance of weight, and fear of triggering eating disorders.
  • Parents perceived feedback as criticism of their parenting skills.

Conclusions:

  • Tailor communication letters to parents.
  • Provide information on weight importance separate from lifestyle factors.
  • Address parental concerns regarding discussing weight with children to mitigate risks of eating disorders.
Abstract

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