Misaligned Attitudes and Perceptions Among Adolescents Living With Obesity, Caregivers and Healthcare Professionals: ACTION Teens Australia Survey Study.

AIMS

To explore perceptions, attitudes, behaviours and barriers relating to adolescent weight management in Australia.

METHODS

ACTION Teens was a cross-sectional, survey-based study. Adolescents with high body mass index (BMI), caregivers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) from 10 countries completed an online survey in 2021. This analysis was limited to participants in Australia. Adolescents (N = 298) were aged 12-< 18 years with BMI ≥ 95th percentile for age and sex. Caregivers (N = 276) lived with an eligible adolescent and were involved in healthcare decisions. HCPs (N = 137) had ≥ 2 years' clinical experience and saw/treated ≥ 10 adolescents with high BMI per month. Outcomes included perceptions of high BMI, weight loss (history, barriers, definition of success), weight-management information sources, and history/assessment of weight-related conversations.

RESULTS

Most adolescents believed their health was good/very good/excellent (83%) but worried about weight impacting their future health (69%). More caregivers indicated their adolescent's health was good/very good/excellent (92%). More adolescents than caregivers agreed weight loss was entirely the adolescent's responsibility (72% vs. 28%), reported a recent weight-loss attempt by the adolescent (52% vs. 21%) and believed initiating weight-related discussions with HCPs was the adolescent's responsibility (62% vs. 51%). Only 42% of adolescents had recently discussed weight with an HCP; although 66% of this subset trusted their HCP's advice, the adolescents reported both positive (73%) and negative (44%) feelings following discussions.

CONCLUSIONS

To improve adolescent obesity care in Australia, improved communication between adolescents and caregivers/HCPs is needed. We recommend HCPs raise the topic of weight with adolescents in a sensitive manner.

CLINICALTRIALS

gov identifier: NCT05013359.