The prevalence of obesity and lifestyle behaviors of parents of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Amy E Bodde, Brian C Helsel, Mary Hastert and 4 others
PMID 36604240WHAT IT FOUND
About 81% of parents of adolescents and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities were overweight or obese, and many ate few fruits and vegetables.
Higher fruit and vegetable intake was linked to lower BMI; reported activity was not.
Key findings
01About 81% of parents were overweight or obese, and mean BMI was 32.3 kg/m2.
02Parents averaged 2.9 cups per day of fruits and vegetables, and only 20% met the guideline minimum of 4.5 to 5 servings per day.
03Higher fruit and vegetable intake was significantly associated with lower parent BMI, but reported weekly activity minutes were not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The parents were selected from a weight-management trial, so they may not represent all parents of adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The sample was 97% female, 90% white, and 94% had some college or higher education. Diet, physical activity, and health habits were self-reported, and the paper notes self-reported activity may be overestimated. All children in the sample had overweight or obesity, which may select for parents with higher weight. The analysis is cross-sectional, so it cannot show that diet, activity, or income caused lower BMI. Caregiver stress, caregiver burden, and adverse childhood experiences were not measured. Some analyses used 90, 95, or 98 parents.
Declared interests
The article text does not report a conflict-of-interest or funding declaration. The supplied publication types list Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these parent lifestyle patterns as evidence that a weight management programme for adolescents with IDD works. The parent data were baseline observations from a trial, and the cross-sectional design cannot show cause and effect.