Should diet and lifestyle interventions be focused only on the parents of overweight children?

Across the world more children are becoming overweight and obese. These children are more likely to suffer from health problems, both as children and later in life. The home environment is an important factor in childhood obesity, with parents playing a large role in food choice and physical activity for their children. Parents have been defined as ‘agents of change’ in the family for intervening with overweight children aged under 12 years, and their input may be sufficient to effect a change in these children. When developing diet and physical activity lifestyle interventions to address childhood obesity, should they be aimed at the parents and children or to the parents alone?

A team of Cochrane authors based in the United Kingdom worked with theCochrane Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders Group to assess the efficacy of diet,