Dietary self‐monitoring and its impact on weight loss in overweight children

Objective . To examine whether dietary self‐monitoring is related to weight loss in overweight children and whether perceived social support or dietary self‐efficacy affects this relation. Design . Longitudinal, behavioral intervention study. Subjects . The study population included 153 children, aged 7–12 years, with daily food records from a 20‐week weight loss program in San Diego, California, USA, conducted between 1999 and 2002. Methods . Self‐monitoring was assessed using two methods: a weekly index as a measure of competency (possible range −7 to +35) and recording sufficiency for total compliance (percentage of days). Results . Significantly greater decreases in percentage overweight were found for children with recording competency at or above the median (mean change: −13.4% vs. −8.6%; p < 0.001) or who were compliant in recording ≥50% of the days (mean change: −13.0% vs. −8.4%; p < 0.001). Using hierarchical linear regression, children who had a higher average weekly monitoring index or recorded sufficiently on more days had significantly greater decreases in percent overweight, after adjusting for age, sex, SES, race/ethnicity and baseline percent overweight ( p < 0.001). Perceived social support at baseline and dietary self‐efficacy were not related to self‐monitoring or change in percent overweight in this sample. Conclusion . As has been demonstrated with adults and adolescents, self‐monitoring in children was associated with greater decreases in percent overweight. However, dietary self‐efficacy and perceived social support were not related to how frequently or thoroughly they monitored dietary intake.