Evaluating Intervention Programs Targeting Parents to Manage Childhood Overweight and Obesity: A Systematic Review...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Public Health Interventions
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Parental influence is key in managing childhood overweight and obesity.
• Intervention programs increasingly target parents to modify children's health behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically evaluate parent-targeted interventions for childhood overweight and obesity.
• To assess these programs using the Reach, Efficacy, Adopt, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of intervention programs.
• Application of the RE-AIM framework to assess study dimensions.
• Analysis of study bias and reporting proportions across RE-AIM components.

Main Results:

• Moderate risk of bias was observed across studies.
• Reach was reported in 78.6% of studies, while maintenance was reported in only 23.8%.
• Most programs improved child BMI but struggled with diverse family reach, professional delivery, and high attrition.

Conclusions:

• Parent-targeted interventions can improve child BMI but face challenges in generalizability.
• Limited reach to diverse populations and high attrition rates hinder widespread adoption and long-term success.
• Future interventions require strategies to enhance diversity, accessibility, and sustained engagement.