Not all parents are open to making lifestyle changes that could help their overweight children shed pounds - particularly if they don’t view the child’s weight as a health problem, according to a new report.

Many healthcare providers assume that parents are eager to make changes to help their children lose weight, said Dr. Kay Rhee of Boston Medical Center.

But in her team’s study, of 151 parents of children who were overweight or on the verge of being overweight, 44 percent of parents said they were not planning on instituting lifestyle changes any time soon.

Thirty-eight percent of parents said they would make such changes soon or were already doing so; this was the group deemed “ready to change.”

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that parents of older children - those ages 8 to 12 - were three times more likely than those of younger children to make lifestyle changes than were parents of younger children.

The same was true of parents who believed their child’s weight was a health issue; they were nearly 10 times more likely than other parents to say they were ready to take actions such as increasing their kids’ fruit and vegetable intake, limiting TV time and encouraging exercise.

Parents were also more open to change if they viewed themselves as overweight.

The study included mostly black and Hispanic families seen at a Philadelphia pediatric practice. The children were between the ages of 2 and 12, and all were either overweight or at risk of becoming so.

According to Rhee, it’s not certain whether it’s better for parents to make lifestyle changes for their overweight children at an early age. “But,” the researcher noted, “children do develop eating habits early in life and it is difficult to change as they get older.”

One of the things that makes it hard for parents to make lifestyle adjustments, Rhee pointed out, is that they themselves may have to overhaul their diets.

But if parents recognize the immediate health problems associated with childhood obesity, she and her colleagues write, that could motivate them to change.

The long-term risks of obesity - including Diabetes, high blood pressure and Heart disease - seem like distant, “adult” diseases, Rhee said. But, she added, there can be more-immediate problems as well, such as poor capacity for exercise - which makes weight loss difficult - exacerbation of Asthma and orthopedic injuries.

If parents are aware of these potential problems, according to Rhee, lifestyle changes may take on more importance to them.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, July 2005.