A prospective plan to investigate the roles of parental- and child-based self-determined motivation in family-oriented hospital-based therapies for childhood obesity

There are many Childhood Obesity (CO) treatment programs, and much research into CO, but very few programs have directly investigated the role of motivation in the success of treatment outcomes. Self-determination theory (SDT) is a widely-used theory of human motivation, which focuses both on the quality, as well as the quantity, of a given individual's motivation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of motivation on the efficacy of a clinical, hospital-based, family-orientated, group-based, CO intervention program. This study aims to determine parent and child motivation regarding weight loss, and to examine the relationships between motivational variables at both pre and post-intervention stages and how this may impact on post-intervention weight loss outcomes. We also aim to explore changes over the duration of the program in the children's motivation profile, and also the parent's motivation profile for their own, and their child's, weight loss.