Brief Report: Quality of Life in Overweight Youth--The Role of Multiple Informants and Perceived Social Support

OBJECTIVE: To examine the impact of overweight status on pediatric quality of life (QOL). METHOD: This correlational study examined the relationship between weight, social support, race, informant, and QOL in a sample of 107 clinically overweight youth, ages 12 to 17 years. RESULTS: Regression analysis did not support the relation between QOL and weight. Social support was a significant predictor of youth reports of overall QOL. Males reported better physical QOL than females by both parent and youth report. Paired-samples t-tests supported a discrepancy between child and parent-proxy reports of QOL; parents reported significantly worse QOL than their children across many dimensions. Analysis of variance found no significant difference between Caucasian and African American youth's QOL. CONCLUSIONS: These results highlighted the importance of considering informant, gender, and the impact of social support when measuring QOL in clinically overweight pediatric populations.