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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Dec 17.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Pers Cent Med. 2012 Sep;2(3):496–504.

TABLE 2.

Parents and Caregivers’ Perception of the Clinical Role in Childhood Obesity

middleics of Interest Representative Quotes
Not all caregivers consider childhood overweight/obesity to warrant clinical attention/behavioral change

  • They have told me that my son is obese, but I am not very worried about it – as they grow their weight goes down; if he gets to be [my daughter’s age] and he’s still chubby well then yes I’ll be worried.
Medical appointments provide an opportunity to make caregivers aware of their child’s weight status and the need to address it

  • When I bring him in for vaccinations, they scold me, ‘why is your son so overweight? He’s very overweight… you have to bring him to nutrition and put him on a diet.’

  • I don’t see her as so chubby…. At first I didn’t think so, but the doctor weighed her and told me she was a little chubby and that was when I knew that she was overweight and I had to take care of her… she could have health problems.
Caregivers expect the clinical setting to provide nutrition and weight-management strategies

  • I think that [a lack of orientation/education by health personnel] also influenced why we didn’t realize - yes I saw that he was chubby, but I said ‘well, it’s that he’s a baby.’ What am I going to do? Make him exercise or something? Because I can’t deny him food.

  • I asked the doctor if he’d send me to the nutritionist for an orientation [health education session], and he told me no, that I should just smiddle feeding him foods that I consider bad… I think there’s a lack of information… we’re not feeling well- oriented [to nutrition]

  • It was her [the doctor] that told us he was overweight and needed to lose weight, but she didn’t give us anything concrete, like what to give him, she just told us to watch what he ate.
Many caregivers are already attempting behavioral changes due to clinician recommendations regarding their own weight-related health concerns or those of a family member

  • My husband is diabetic, and they’ve told us that my son is overweight and that we should avoid breaded and fried foods. They’ve told me I should give him more proteins, chicken broth, fish, eggs and all that…they took a lot of things [foods] away from my husband… they gave him a diet and so I make the food like they tell him.

  • I look at myself and say, ‘I don’t want to see my children that way.’ It’s time to achieve and maintain their weight, have stable nutrition, we’re going to do it… look at her; she’s the biggest in all of the kindergarten and the chubbiest.