Long-term effects of family-based treatment for obesity on nontreated family members

We have previously shown that children in families in which both obese parents and children were targeted and reinforced for weight loss were more successful in weight loss after 5 years than children in a child alone target or nonspecific target control group. This effect was not observed in participating parents, with parent weight returning to baseline levels for all treatment groups (Epstein, Wing, Koeske and valoski, in press). The current study assessed the effect of the family-based treatment for childhood obesity on nontreated parents and siblings. Given the limitation that the majority of the nontreated parent and sibling data were based on participating parent report, the results showed overweight nonparticipating siblings of children in the parent plus child treatment group had significantly greater percent overweight change than overweight siblings in the child alone or nonspecific target groups. No significant group differences were observed for obese nonparticipating parents or for nonobese nonparticipating siblings or parents over the five-year period.