Parents’ A priori Expectations of an Obesity Focused Intervention and What They Found Valuable from its Health Education Webinars

ABSTRACT Purpose: Explore parents with obesity’s: (1) a priori expectations of what they wanted to gain from participating in an obesity-focused intervention compared to (2) post-participation views of what was valuable from the webinar-based health education sessions. Design: A before and after descriptive study, baseline interviews gleaned parents’ motivations for program participation. Following 6 webinar-based health education sessions focused on physical activity (PA) and nutrition in the family unit, parents’ perceptions of what was valuable were collected. Setting: Community-dwelling members in southwestern Ontario. Participants: “Parents” (N=50) were adults with a body mass index of 25+ kg/m2 and had a child of any body composition, aged 2.5 – 10. Methods:  Inductive content analyses were employed on semi-structured qualitative interview transcripts and written responses to open-ended questions. Results: Wanting to provide a healthier life for their children was a prominent finding from parents’ baseline interviews. From the webinars, information on local PA resources and on creating positive food environments were especially valuable. In total, there were 7 themes and 4 sub-themes from the baseline interviews; 7 themes and 7 sub-themes from the PA webinars; and 7 themes and 11 sub-themes from the nutrition webinars. Conclusions: Parents found the webinars addressed various concepts they hoped to gain from their participation in the intervention. Results from these webinars can inform other parent-focused family interventions on important components when crafting future webinars. Keywords: parents, health education, obesity, overweight