Adolescent Obesity Treatments and Parental Involvement: What Do We Know? :

Families of adolescents who are overweight or obese are often encouraged to join their teenager in their weight-loss efforts to support lifestyle changes. How effective are these interventions and what is the optimal role for parents to play? To answer that question, Bean et al (10.1542/peds.2019-3315) performed a systematic review that is being published this month in our journal looking at parental involvement in adolescent obesity treatment and just what the optimal type of such involvement is to achieve desired weight outcomes. The authors focused their efforts only on randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) and found 23 unique ones to review. The trials usually targeted teens, but sometimes the parent or both. The authors also identified studies involving group vs individual sessions or both to carry out an intervention. Parent outcomes were not reported 40% of the time, parent weight only 26% of the time, and only 17% of studies looked at associations between parent and teen weight changes. The authors provide a comprehensive look at these heterogeneous studies and call for more work to engage the whole family. We asked Dr. Sandra Hassink, an expert in obesity to share her thoughts about this review article (10.1542/peds.2020-003293). She notes the thoroughness of the review but then raises concerns about how to identify the best ways for parents to support their teens due to the complexities of adolescent development. For example, an early vs. older adolescent may vary in the level of autonomy requested by that adolescent to take full responsibility for the intervention. There is a lot of information to learn from both this review and commentary—so read them and weigh in with your thoughts.