Self-management and weight loss in adolescents: A systematic review

Abstract

<p>Session presented on Tuesday, November 10, 2015:</p> <p><strong>Background:</strong> Evidence of parental support in weight loss of overweight and obese adolescents provide significant decrease in overweight adolescents compared to standard care or self-help in the short term and over the long term (Oude Luttikhuis et al., 2009). However, there is limited information on which parental components are effective in supporting the adolescent's self-management of weight loss.</p> <p><strong>Purpose: </strong>To develop a better understanding of effective parental support in self-management weight loss strategies for overweight and obese youth.</p> <p><strong>Methods: </strong>This integrative review evaluates the effects of current adolescent self-management weight loss interventions in racially and ethnically diverse adolescents aged 10 to 18 years. Studies published between 2010 and 2014 were identified by electronic database searches. The Jadad Scoring of Quality Reports of Randomized Clinical Trials was used to examine the quality of the studies. Three people independently reviewed the articles based on the Jadad criteria.</p> <p><strong>Findings:</strong> Ten studies, which met the inclusion criteria, were included in the final review. Jadad scores ranged from 7 to 11. Nine of the studies included a parental component. Educating parents on self-behavioral monitoring, mentoring, and role modeling are promising components for adolescents self-managing their weight loss.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion/Implications:</strong> This review found that parental components played an important part in sustaining adolescent's weight loss across time. Effective parental components that helped parents provide support of their child in weight loss and weight loss maintenance included educating parents on positive role modeling of eating and physical activity, motivational techniques, culturally appropriate meal planning, skills enhancing adolescent self-efficacy, assisting adolescent with realistic goal setting, and problem solving. Including parental components, such as the latter, increases support and decreases feelings of segregation that adolescents may acquire when treated separately from the family (World Health Organization, 2000). Researchers should evaluate associations between parental support components and changes in adolescent Body Mass Index. By implementing parental components effective in supporting the adolescent that is self-managing weight loss could reduce the global prevalence of obesity among adolescents.</p>