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Do Teens Want Parents Involved in Their Weight Management Treatment? A Qualitative Examination
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Do Teens Want Parents Involved in Their Weight Management Treatment? A Qualitative Examination

Isabella Pruscino, Ross M Sonnenblick, Jannah Rabha Moussaoui and Stephanie M Manasse
Annals of behavioral medicine, v 60(Supplement_1), pp S478-S478
01 Apr 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaag012#page=S478
url
https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaag012#page=S478View
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Abstract

Children's health Weight control
As overweight/obesity in youth has been associated with health risks including cardiovascular disease, the need to develop acceptable and effective weight management (WM) interventions for this group is pronounced. The literature surrounding parental involvement in adolescent WM programs is mixed and lacks qualitative approaches to understand teens’ perspectives on parental involvement in their WM treatment. The present study analyzes qualitative interview responses from teens who recently underwent a teen-only group WM program. Adolescent (ages 14-19, BMI ≥ 85th percentile) females completed feedback interviews following completion of a group acceptance-based WM program or a psychoeducational WM program in a randomized trial. Participants (n = 24, 62.5% Black or African American, 12.5% Asian, 20.8% White, 4.2% more than one race) responded to the following question: “We chose not to involve parents or other support people [in this program]. How do you feel about that? Would you make any changes?” Responses were analyzed through inductive thematic analysis. Following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase framework for thematic analyses, three themes emerged from participants’ responses: 1) Not involving parents ensures the highest possible comfort in the group space; 2) Without parental presence, teens are more invested in the program; and 3) Future programs could have a method for including parents in a limited capacity. Notably, almost all participants (95.8%) reported that they would not change the design of the WM program and enjoyed that their parents were uninvolved. One teen (i.e., 4.2%) mentioned that not involving parents was a good decision, but she thought including parents in the program should be optional. Overall, teens discussed how a teen-only group space facilitated honesty and vulnerability and promoted engagement in the program. Teens also outlined ideas for minimizing involvement of parents in WM programs (e.g., WM programs could provide descriptions of their content to ease parents’ concerns). Findings from this study are consistent with results from a past study exploring what teens would hope to see in a WM program, where teens also suggested that parents should have limited involvement. Future research must continue to examine the effectiveness of WM interventions by comparing weight loss outcomes with and without parents present, especially among groups of diverse teens.

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