Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of 59 parents of children with obesity between 4 and 7 years of age presenting to a tertiary care pediatric weight management clinic. Parents completed a validated measure assessing their confidence managing their child’s weight-related behaviors (parent confidence score).
Student’s t-tests and linear regression analyses were used to determine parent and child
characteristics associated with parent confidence score.
Results: Families were ethnically diverse with half being of Hispanic ethnicity. Mean parent confidence
score was 159 (SD 66) with 71% of parents with parent confidence scores below the clinical cut-off for the
measure. Parent confidence score was lower among Hispanic (mean 133, SD 67) compared to non-
Hispanic parents (mean 184, SD 55, p < 0.01). Parent confidence score was most strongly associated with
parental ethnicity (b = 0.39, p = 0.002, adjusted R2 = 0.14).