The goal of this Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Award (K23) is to allow Dr. Rhee to become an independent researcher in the area of pediatric weight management. This training plan, through a combination of didactic and direct mentored training experiences, provides her with the opportunity to develop additional skills and expertise in: 1) the behavioral management of child overweight, 2) the study of parent-child interactions, parenting style, and parenting interventions, which may impact the efficacy of pediatric weight control programs, and 3) the methodology, statistics and ethics of clinical research in childhood obesity. The resources at The Miriam Hospital/ Brown Medical School and close contact with her expert mentoring team (Drs. Wing, Dickstein, Jelalian, and Seifer) will provide Dr. Rhee with the ideal environment to achieve her training and research goals. Childhood obesity continues to be a serious public health concern. Family-based behavioral treatment programs can be successful, but have great variability in efficacy. Several factors may impact the success of these programs: the adoption of parenting skills and the impact of parenting style on the implementation of behavioral changes in the home. The goal of this proposal is to better understand the role of parenting skills/style in the success of behavioral weight control for children. We will first develop a coding schema for parenting skills that occur during a family meal. During phase II, when we implement a family-based behavioral weight control program, we will use this and other existing direct observation measures to evaluate parenting skills and style during a videotaped family meal. Additional self-report measures completed by the parent and child will supplement the information gathered in the videotapes. We will then determine the role of parenting skills and parenting style on change in child weight status and whether or not current family-based programs can change these parent level factors. As a secondary aim, we will examine whether there are differences in parenting skills or style between families of overweight and normal weight children.
The results of this study will inform the development of an enhanced or modified behavioral treatment program for children that addresses the parent level factors found to be significant. Ultimately, the goal of this proposal is to develop a more comprehensive and effective treatment for overweight children.
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