The prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity has tripled in the past three decades. This increase has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in obesity-related health complications among American youth. Thus, many obese youth are now experiencing illnesses that will threaten their life expectancy in the absence of significant weight loss.…

Objective: To develop and test a brief measure of changes in eating, active play, and parenting practices after an intervention to help parents shape children's choices and home environments. Design: Sequential phases of development and testing: expert panel review, cognitive testing interviews, field testing, test-retest study, and assessment of…

Obesity prevalence has doubled among adults and overweight has tripled among children since 1980. This article discusses behavioral approaches to the obesity epidemic, focusing on recent environmental changes, the resulting behaviors, and possible solutions. Over the last 4 decades, time spent in sedentary activities, the consumption of fast food,…

Provided a five-year follow-up of obese children who participated in a family-based behavioral weight control program targeting and reinforcing children and parents for weight loss. Children in the parent-plus-child group showed significantly greater weight reductions after five years than did children in control groups. (Author/ABB)

Examined relationship between baseline adherence and attrition among families involved in a children's weight-loss program. Evaluated overall baseline adherence by the degree of families' completion of food intake and activity records. Anything but high adherence during baseline was predictive of dropout, suggesting that this is a useful index for…

Objective: Thin body preoccupation and social pressure to be thin (TBPSP) in adolescence are risk factors for the development of full and partial bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. This study examined precursors of these potent risk factors. Method: A prospective study followed 134 children from birth to 11.0 years and their parents.…

Research related to the importance of involving parents directly in treatment programming for childhood obesity has provided inconclusive results because of methodological problems and relatively short treatment duration periods. The effectiveness of an extended behavioral weight control program was evaluated during a 10-week treatment phase and…

Evaluated efficacy of parental problem-solving training in a behavioral weight-reduction program for obese children. Assigned children and their parents to problem-solving, behavioral, and instruction-only weight-loss groups. Children in the problem-solving group lost significantly more weight and maintained the weight loss better. Child weight…