Adults with overweight or obesity use less efficient memory strategies compared to adults with healthy weight on a verbal list learning task modified with food words.

Several studies suggest poorer episodic memory among adults with overweight (OW) relative to those with healthy weight (HW); however, few have used food stimuli. To understand the salience of food-related items when assessing memory, we adapted an episodic memory task, by replacing some non-food words with snack foods. Participants were 96 weight-loss seeking adults with OW compared to 48 adults with HW from the community matched on age, gender, ethnicity, and education. Overall memory ability was similar, although a trend showed the adults with HW performed better than adults with OW on immediate recall (d = 0.32, p = 0.07). However, there were clear differences in the use of learning strategies. Adults with HW utilized sematic clustering more effectively than adults with OW during all test phases (ds = 0.44-0.62; ps ≤ 0.01). Adults with HW also utilized serial clustering more effectively (d = 0.51; p < 0.01). Adults with HW showed better semantic clustering for both food and non-food words during immediate and short delay recall (ds = 0.42-0.78; ps ≤ 0.01) but semantic clustering was only better for the non-food category at long delay (d = 0.55; p < 0.01). These results show that adults with OW utilized less efficient learning strategies throughout the task and food-related content may impact learning. Clinically, these findings may suggest that weight-loss treatments should consider incorporating the teaching of learning and memory strategies to help increase utilization of new skills.

Evaluation of dyadic changes of parent-child weight loss patterns during a family-based behavioral treatment for obesity.

BACKGROUND: Family-based treatment (FBT) for children with overweight and obesity is a package that includes nutrition and physical activity education, as well as parenting and behavior therapy skills. To date, the majority of research suggests that one of the best predictors of child weight loss is parent weight loss. However, the bidirectional processes facilitating parent-child weight loss are not well understood. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the strength and direction of parent-child weight-change patterns during a 6-month intervention with FBT for childhood obesity. METHODS: Parent-child weight change dynamics were evaluated using a bivariate multilevel approach. RESULTS: Significant positive weight reductions throughout treatment were observed among both parents and children (P's < .01 for both parent and child). In the model adjusting for the conditional influence of attendance over time, parents' initial weight loss was associated with subsequent weight loss by their child (B = 0.102, P < .05; d = 0.352) across the first 10 sessions. Child's weight loss also was associated with subsequent weight loss by their parent (B = 0.105, P < .01; d = 0.412) across the first 10 sessions. A small and negative effects of parents' weight loss on children and children's weight loss on parents from sessions 10 to 20 may have been reflective of slowed rates of weight loss as treatment progressed. CONCLUSIONS: Together these data suggest that parent-child dyads mutually influence weight loss in FBT. Future studies should leverage how to make best clinical use of these dynamic effects in the context of family-based interventions.