Talking About Weight With Families: An Innovative Educational Strategy

Nearly one third of Canadian children and adolescents are overweight or obese. Eating disorders are the third most common chronic condition in adolescents. Although both of these issues are highly prevalent, parents who have children struggling with either underweight or overweight are concerned about how to approach those topics. Even though they are usually well-intended, their intervention may have a negative impact. Indeed, research has shown that parents who encourage their children to diet or discuss their own diet is associated with overweight or eating disorders in their children. Conversely, if parents focus on healthful eating behaviors, overweight adolescents are less likely to diet and to use unhealthy weight-control behaviors. In that context, in order to help children struggling with unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, the development of educational materials to promote healthy and helpful conversation about weight for parents is critically needed. While the use of educational videos with parents has been studied, this will be the first study examining videos to educate parents regarding weight-related communication.

Available literature also suggests that health care professionals feel ill-equipped to address weight-related issues with their patients, particularly obesity. A lack of self-efficacy and training are recognized as two significant barriers to discussing weight with patients and their families. Other challenges include the fear of damaging their relationship with patients and their families and the apprehension of triggering other issues such as eating disorders. Thus, educational materials to help health care professionals talk about weight-related issues with their patients are warranted. Educational videos have been shown to be an effective way to improve knowledge, confidence, and attitudes of health care professionals and trainees.

The investigators have designed two whiteboard videos based on a weight-related communication scoping review and on the key messages identified in a focus groups conducted previously by our group (McPherson A et al. Talking with children and families about obesity and weight related topics: A scoping review of best practices. Obes Rev.). They will evaluate the videos using pre and post questionnaires directed on usability, content, quality (acceptability, engagement) and measuring the impact on perceived self-efficacy in regards to discussing weight. The investigators will also evaluate the impact of the video over time with a third questionnaire 4 to 6 months later. The pre questionnaire for parents will include socio-demographic questions to enable us to provide sample characteristics. These data will be collected as they are known to have impact on the way weight is perceived. The investigators hypothesize that health care professionals' perceived self-efficacy on discussing weight-related issues with their paediatric patients and parents' perceived self-efficacy on raising weight issues with their children and answering their answers on that topic will improve after watching the videos, and will persist over time.