WATCH IT: Obesity management for children: A qualitative exploration of the views of parents

Childhood obesity has become a major concern of public health over the last decade. Obesity prevention programmes show limited success and the evidence base is weak. Experience with school-based obesity prevention research in Leeds highlighted the felt needs of children who were already obese, and a project was set up to attempt to meet those needs. WATCH IT has been running since 2003 and has involved 94 children. The quantitative data has been reported elsewhere, and this paper presents qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with participating children and their parents. These data show that WATCH IT has been successful in recruiting and retaining children, that children enjoy attending, and that it meets their emotional needs. Parents and children reported reduced self-harm, depression and better results at school for their children. The data also illustrate the effect of obesity on the family and that parents have a range of emotional and practical needs, which are partly being met by the programme. There needs to be a more systematic attempt to evaluate projects such as WATCH IT so that this can be added to the existing patchy evidence base. The data point to the importance of whole-family approaches.