Журнал терапии ожирения и снижения веса

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The Importance of Psychodiagnostic Evaluation to Structure Effective and Integrated Prevention Program: A Preliminary Sicilian Study

Teresa Buccheri

The present work is a preliminary study conducted in Sicily (Messina) that aims to evaluate obese children in different perspectives: individual, relational, medical and psychological. The study involved 31 families with overweight/ obese children (16 fathers, 30 mothers and 31 children). Socio-demographic questionnaire, Questionnaire about eating and physical habits, Family Nutrition and Physical activity interview (Ihmels et al. 2009), Eating Disorder Inventory 2 (EDI-2; Rizzardi et al. 1995) and Parenting Styles Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ; Confalonieri et al. 2009) were administered to the parents; Socio-demographic questionnaire, Questionnaire about eating and physical habits were administered to the children. Descriptive statistical analysis (mean, standard deviation, frequency counts and percentages) revealed that there weren’t any significant results because parents didn’t showed pathological characteristics except for mothers’ Maturity’s fear scale (MF) of EDI 2 that measures fear of facing the demands of adult life. According to the parenting styles questionnaire, parents didn’t show a specific parenting style; anyway mothers showed a tendency toward an authoritative parenting style (24.93 ± 4.37; Cut off =30). In general, even if familial nutritional and physical habits look healthy (FNPA 22.65 ± 2.73), answers from children are a bit worrying; children have unhealthy preferences about food (French fries, pizza, sweets), they usually eat in secret and they don’t play sufficient physical activities. Author believes that other evaluations have to be conducted with parents because clinical group is really small and it can’t be considered a sample; families could show pathological elements from a psychodynamic and systemic point of view but a complex, integrated and multidisciplinary approach has to be developed. Author believes that untold and hidden contents could be hand down on a trans generational level by \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\”weighting\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\” children without their awareness therefore the present work represents a preliminary study that Author is developing starting from the idea of working with familial stories collected with a semistructered interview (Buccheri, Lenzo in press).