Table 3.
Key barriers affecting promotion of healthy weight gain in infants and young childrena
| Barrier | N | n (%) responses rating the barrier as importantb | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moderately important | Very important | Total | ||
| Parent doesn’t recognise child is overweight | 86 | 30 (34.9) | 54 (62.8) | 84 (97.7) |
| Parent not motivated to change diet or lifestyle | 86 | 19 (22.1) | 61 (70.9) | 80 (93.0) |
| Parent is overweight, so unconcerned that child is overweight | 84 | 30 (35.7) | 47 (56.0) | 77 (91.7) |
| Socio-economic factors (e.g. cost of healthy food) | 86 | 32 (37.2) | 46 (53.5) | 78 (90.7) |
| Child’s weight not a parental priority | 87 | 39 (44.8) | 29 (33.3) | 68 (78.2) |
| Advice is not effective | 84 | 25 (29.8) | 34 (40.5) | 59 (70.2) |
| Nurse’s concern that parents will not be receptive to advice | 86 | 31 (36.0) | 27 (31.4) | 58 (67.4) |
| Advice irrelevant to presenting issue | 85 | 30 (35.3) | 26 (30.6) | 56 (65.9) |
| Lack of clinical services for additional/ongoing parental support | 85 | 28 (32.9) | 26 (30.6) | 54 (63.5) |
| Nurse’s lack of time | 83 | 33 (39.8) | 18 (21.7) | 51 (61.5) |
| Nurse’s concern that parents will not act on advice | 85 | 25 (29.4) | 26 (30.6) | 51 (60.0) |
a See Additional file 1 for all questions
b Remaining respondents rated the barrier as ‘not important’ or ‘slightly important’