Abstract
The Parenting, Eating and Activity for Child Health (PEACHTM) Study: Supporting Parents to Manage Their Children’s Weight
Rebecca Perry
PhD candidate, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics,
Flinders University
Childhood obesity is one of the most alarming health issues facing Australian children today. Childhood obesity:
- affects up to 20% of Australian children,
- can damage children’s mental and physical health, and
- if untreated, can persist into adulthood in 80%.
Very few services are available to manage childhood obesity and effective treatment strategies are urgently required.
Childhood obesity results from an imbalance between eating and activity behaviours influenced by the examples set for children by adults (ie. their parents) and where they live (ie. their home). We have developed a family-focussed healthy lifestyle program (PEACH™) to support parents to manage overweight in their 5-9 year old children by focusing on the importance of parenting skills. Families were placed into one of 2 groups (healthy lifestyle information +/- parenting support) and parents attended 8-12 group information sessions over 6 months. We measured children at the beginning and end of the program and every 6 months for 2 years. At the end of the program all children reduced their degree of overweight, and children whose parents had received the parenting support performed better than the others. By 12 months, this difference disappeared but both groups maintained the reduction in overweight seen at the end of the program for 2 years. Improvements were also seen for children’s eating and activity behaviours. Children’s levels of self-esteem were maintained.
PEACH™ resulted in short- and long-term improvements in children’s weight and lifestyle behaviours and identified ways to support families to manage their children’s weight.
