Reacción a "Programs focused on parents are insufficient to prevent childhood obesity, according to a meta-analysis"

Addressing obesity in pre-school children involves many challenges, not least because of parents’ difficulties in recognising and acknowledging their children’s condition [see 2022 study in BCM Public Health]. The review reaches the correct conclusion that more interventions are needed on the food and physical activity environments in which children and young families live, a key condition for enacting change on a large scale. However, behavioural interventions on families at higher risk of early childhood obesity should not be dismissed. They do work when appropriately targeted and designed, usually with the support of primary and community care services. In the context of the STOP (Science and Technology in childhood Obesity) project [Editor's note: coordinated by Sassi from 2018 to 2022], the World Health Organization has provided good practice guidance on how to deploy such interventions.