Parent Involvement in Adolescent Obesity Treatment

A randomized control trial to compare the efficacy of two distinct parent treatments on weight loss maintenance for adolescents with obesity participating in a lifestyle intervention including nutrition education, exercise and behavioral support. Funding support from NIH via 1R01HD095910

Investigators will recruit adolescents with overweight or obesity (BMI\>85th percentile) and a parent (BMI \> 25 kg/m2). Families will participate in one of two 4-month treatments: 1) TEENS+ Parents as Coaches (PAC), engaging parents as helpers in their child's weight management, or 2) TEENS+ Parent Weight Loss (PWL), engaging parents in their own weight management. All adolescents will participate in TEENS+, which includes behavioral support, nutrition education, and supervised physical activity. For adolescents, the intervention will consist of weekly behavioral weight management group sessions and weekly 1 hour exercise sessions. Each adolescent also has a monthly individual session with a behavior coach. Parent groups meet weekly for 1 hour according to treatment arm (PAC or PWL). All PWL sessions are separate from their adolescent. Bi-weekly sessions in the PAC arm are combined with parents and adolescent. Assessments will consist of anthropometric measures, psychological surveys and dietary and PA evaluations. Assessments will be completed at baseline, 2 months, 4 months (post-test), 8 months and 1 year.