Guidelines for caregivers and healthcare professionals on speaking to children about overweight and obesity: A systematic review of the gray literature

Abstract

Caregivers and healthcare professionals (HPs) are increasingly concerned about childhood obesity. A critical consideration of caregivers and HPs is discussing weight status without provoking disordered eating. Given the complexity of these interacting concerns, major health advocacy groups have independently published guidelines for having conversations with children about overweight/obesity. The current investigation represented the first-ever systematic review of these guidelines to analyze their content, consistency, actionability, or scientific support. To conduct a systematic review, the authors performed a web-based search using the terms parent/HP, guidelines, child, and overweight/obesity that identified 59 guidelines on childhood obesity broadly, of which 13 provided explicit direction on how the caregiver or HP should approach a conversation about overweight with a child. Within these 13 guidelines, nine topic domains were identified: Attitude modeling (covered by 31% of guidelines), behavior modeling (61%), dietary recommendations (54%), physical activity (46%), body acceptance and self-esteem (69%), conversation advice (92%), contact with HP (46%), talking about "weight"versus "overall health"(54%) and external factors (e.g., bullying, media) (54%). Although guidelines presented similar content, several inconsistencies in recommendations emerged. Notably, only three of the 13 guidelines referenced any scholarly sources and only a small minority of advice was actionable by caregivers or HPs. It is evident that guidelines for caregivers and HPs on speaking to children about obesity offer inconsistent advice, minimally based on empirical evidence. Future guidelines should aim to unify their messages for caregivers and HP and be better supported by empirical data.