Systematic review of parental influences on Hispanic children's nutritional and physical health

Background: Obesity affects racial/ethnic groups at disproportionate rates. As within other minority populations, obesity rates are increasing in Hispanic individuals. Parental and cultural influences play important roles in determining children’s health-related lifestyle behaviors. Thus, it is important to understand how Hispanic parents are incorporated in behavioral interventions. Methods: The inclusion criteria for this systematic review included being part of a human study published in a peer-reviewed, English language journal between 2009 and 2021, targeting school-age children, featuring a parent-based nutritional intervention, having at least a 50% Hispanic population, and including a nutritional, parental, and (optional) physical activity outcome. The search included terms such as “feeding behavior”, “pediatric obesity”, and “parenting”. Parent involvement within the intervention was scored as either active or passive. Results: The search yielded 6567 articles. After removing 2847 duplicates, 4433 titles and abstracts were reviewed and 359 full text articles were reviewed. Of the 359 full text articles reviewed, 34 articles met inclusion criteria and 23 articles were not available for review. Thirty-four articles spanning 32 studies were included in this review. Twenty-three studies were classified as using active strategies with regard to parental components. Conclusion: Interventions aimed at preventing childhood obesity among Hispanic children with parental components are actively involving parents through tailoring, active learning, modeling, and goal-setting. Studies using a combination of these change methods reported positive behavioral changes among the children participants.