Effects of a weight-control promotion program on parents' responses to family eating situations

The purpose of this research was to evaluate an education intervention program designed to prevent weight problems in children by encouraging family changes in food selection, eating habits, and activity levels. The Preschool Eating Patterns (PEP) Program worked with parents, teaching procedures of reinforcement and extinction to encourage or discourage various practices. Thirty-six families participating in the PEP program served as the experimental group and 11 families as a comparison group. The program was evaluated by assessing parents' verbalizations and behaviors relevant to their children's eating patterns. The results suggest that the PEP program is a promising education intervention leading to more constructive parental responses to family eating situations, but further investigations are necessary to determine whether the program is truly preventive of future overweight.