Weight-Talk Between Parents and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Relationships with Health-Related and Psychosocial Outcomes

Research findings suggest parent weight-talk is associated with negative health outcomes among youth, and weight must be discussed with caution. Yet, it remains unclear the extent to which different approaches to weight-talk affect different health-related outcomes. The objective of this systematic review is to characterize varying parent weight-talk approaches with respect to adolescent health-related and psychosocial outcomes and to identify methodological shortcomings in this body of literature. Included articles were published between January 2010 and January 2020, included adolescents ages 11–18, addressed weight-talk between parents and adolescents, and excluded clinical populations (e.g., eating disorder diagnosis, bariatric and/or diabetic population). A systematic search of three databases and a hand search of two peer-reviewed journals resulted in 16 articles meeting inclusion criteria. While findings remain preliminary, the research indicates that overall health-based conversations are more productive and cause less harmful consequences than overt conversations about adolescent weight. The findings also demonstrate that research lacks dyadic data between parents and adolescents for weight-talk, fathers are underrepresented in this research, and adolescent preferences/perceptions of comments and discussions with parents remain unknown. More research is needed to examine different types of weight-talk between parents and adolescents and health outcomes associated with engaging in such conversations and/or comments.