Barnövervikt, föräldraskap, prevention och intervention

Sammanfattning: Parenting, intervention and prevention of pediatric overweight/obesity in preschool children from a psychological, child-and family oriented perspective is the subject in this paper. Psychological factors of importance for children's eating, the importance of food in the family, parental stress related to children's eating, timing and focus in intervention and prevention are subjects, highlighted and discussed. A study is presented illustrating how a group of parents estimated perceived parental stress, locus of control in parenting and self-efficacy, before and after participation in a parental-based intervention. The parents who attended the intervention had an obese child, 4-6 years old. The aim of the intervention was to prevent further obesity. The study group consisted of 22 parents, 13 mothers and 9 fathers. Before and after participation in the intervention group the parents answered questions measuring parentalstress (SPSQ; Östberg et al., 1997), parental control and competence (PLOC; Campis, 1986) and questions designed to measure the ability and confidence in their own ability to influence their lives (Mastery; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). The results were analyzed by median values and a non-parametric test for two dependent measurements. The results are presented for the whole group, and divided into two sub-groups: mothers and fathers. The parents perceived parental locus of control did not differ before and after participation, neither did their perceived self-efficacy. The parents perceived parental stress, stress associated with parenting, showed an increase in the whole group. The overall experience of stress in parenting had increased in the whole group. A breakdown of the group into mothers and fathers also showed an increase in parental stress but showed some differences according to subscales.