Psychosocial Patterns of Different Weight Groups in Children

Background: Childhood obesity in Israel is among the highest in Western society. The consequences of obesity are not only medical, and the issues that often trouble obese children even more are psychosocial. There is no consensus among researchers regarding the existence of psychosocial difficulties among overweight and obese children.

Aim: The purpose of the current study was to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms, motivation for weight loss, self-efficacy and relationship with the parents among different weight groups in children.

Methods: Four questionnaires: child depression inventory, self-efficacy for healthy lifestyle, motivation and parent-child relationship were distributed among 152 children, 9-17 years old, divided into three study groups: overweight and obese, BMI%ile 85-97 (N=55), morbid obese, BMI%ile≥97 (n=51), and normal weight, BMI%ile 5-85 (n=46).

Results: Significant differences were found between morbid obesity and normal weight groups in depressive symptoms (p0.001), motivation for weight loss (p0.01) and parent-child relationship (p0.01). In addition, significant differences between the weight groups were found in familial obesity, in the way the child was fed as a baby, in the amount of physically active days and in number of friends.

Discussion and Conclusion: Our results demonstrate a disturbing existence of higher depression symptoms and different pattern of parent-child relationships among morbid obese children compared with overweight and normal weight peers. We also found different levels of motivation for weight loss in those weight groups. The results highlight the importance of evaluating and including a behavioral/psychological component in the treatment of childhood obesity, especially in morbid obese children.