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Obesity in Children Provokes Stress in Parents: Presented at ADAA

By Fran Lowry

MIAMI, F.L. -- March 28, 2006 -- Parents of obese children suffer stress that is related to their child's obesity similar to the stress that affects parents of children with cancer, diabetes, or other chronic illnesses, researchers reported here at the 26^th Annual Conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA).

Childhood obesity is increasing in incidence and is linked to serious health concerns, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and sleep apnea. Parents know that their obese child is at risk, and this knowledge can provoke higher stress levels, said Vanessa Ohleyer, PhD student, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.

Ms. Ohleyer's research was supervised by Eric A. Storch, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida.

"Parents may be distressed about their child's current and future health, and obese children can exhibit high rates of psychological problems such as aggressiveness, depression, and internalizing and externalizing behavior relative to their slim, healthy peers," she explained.

Treatment of obesity involves lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise, and the responsibility to see that the child makes these changes falls to the parent. It is this responsibility that may be causing parental stress, Ms. Ohleyer said. And, when a parent is stressed out, he or she is not as good at enforcing those all important lifestyle changes.

"Parental stress may be a primary factor that interferes with management of a child's obesity," she noted.

To study disease-related stress in parents of obese children, Ms. Ohleyer and colleagues studied psychological correlates of the Pediatric Inventory for Parents (PIP), a 42-item measure of parental stress across different medical conditions. The study enrolled 72 parents of 72 obese children aged 8 to 18 years. Of the participating parents, the majority, 68, were mothers, 2 were fathers, and 2 were grandparents.

Results of the study show that PIP scores correlated closely with parental stress and anxiety, child anxiety and parental reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior.

"The implications for this are serious, because the stress that parents encounter as a result of their child's disease may actually hinder their ability to implement treatment regimens," Ms. Ohleyer said. "They hold the responsibility for their child's lifestyle changes. But when they try to impose these changes, they may encounter resistance on the part of the child."

Measures such as the PIP can be useful for physicians and other health care providers who see these families to get a more accurate picture of problems the parent might be facing in trying to get their obese children to lose weight, she said.


[Presentation title: Disease Related Stress in Parents of Obese Children: Relations with Parental Anxiety and Childhood Psychosocial Functioning. Abstract 397]

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