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Table 3 Key barriers affecting promotion of healthy weight gain in infants and young childrena

From: Promoting healthy weight for all young children: a mixed methods study of child and family health nurses’ perceptions of barriers and how to overcome them

Barrier

N

n (%) responses rating the barrier as importantb

Moderately important

Very important

Total

Parent doesn’t recognise child is overweight

86

30 (34.9)

54 (62.8)

84 (97.7)

Parent not motivated to change diet or lifestyle

86

19 (22.1)

61 (70.9)

80 (93.0)

Parent is overweight, so unconcerned that child is overweight

84

30 (35.7)

47 (56.0)

77 (91.7)

Socio-economic factors (e.g. cost of healthy food)

86

32 (37.2)

46 (53.5)

78 (90.7)

Child’s weight not a parental priority

87

39 (44.8)

29 (33.3)

68 (78.2)

Advice is not effective

84

25 (29.8)

34 (40.5)

59 (70.2)

Nurse’s concern that parents will not be receptive to advice

86

31 (36.0)

27 (31.4)

58 (67.4)

Advice irrelevant to presenting issue

85

30 (35.3)

26 (30.6)

56 (65.9)

Lack of clinical services for additional/ongoing parental support

85

28 (32.9)

26 (30.6)

54 (63.5)

Nurse’s lack of time

83

33 (39.8)

18 (21.7)

51 (61.5)

Nurse’s concern that parents will not act on advice

85

25 (29.4)

26 (30.6)

51 (60.0)

  1. a See Additional file 1 for all questions
  2. b Remaining respondents rated the barrier as ‘not important’ or ‘slightly important’