, 2012.; Maynard et al., 2003), but in the present study the association between school year and behaviour change remained after adjusting for child’s overweight status and recognition of overweight. One possible explanation is that unhealthy behaviours increase during adolescence (Brodersen et al., 2007 and Dumith et al., 2011), therefore parents of older children may feel more concerned about poor lifestyle behaviours than those of younger children. Older children themselves may also be more aware of their behaviours and have greater desire to change. Ethnic differences Torin 1 supplier in behaviour change could be explained by culturally specific responses to

health advice. For example, among South Asian groups in the UK, advice from health professionals is more likely to be seen as authoritative (Lucas et al., 2013) therefore parents may be more likely to take action in response to recommendations in the feedback

letter. Another explanation may be an increased effect of social desirability on reporting of favourable behaviours among ethnic minority groups (Klesges et al., 2004). Our questionnaires were not translated into other languages, therefore our sample did not include parents who were unable to read and write in English, which is likely to have led to an underrepresentation of ethnic minority groups who may experience the greatest barriers to behaviour change. Due to the small numbers of participants from individual ethnic minority groups, we were not able to further disaggregate the effects of ethnicity. Further exploration of the effects of ethnic group on behaviour change may indicate whether there is a need for culturally-specific

crotamiton Selleck Rapamycin approaches to weight feedback. This study was limited by the relatively small number of overweight children in the wider sample. The low response rates at follow-up and substantial missing data for some variables raise the possibility of selection bias; comparison of the study sample with all children participating in the NCMP in the five PCTs (n = 18,000) showed that there were lower proportions of overweight children, ethnic minority families, and parents from the most deprived areas among respondents. These groups may be less likely to engage with public health interventions, and less likely to make changes as a result of feedback. A further limitation is the use of brief measures of lifestyle behaviour, which were selected to keep questionnaires concise and maximise response rates, but have not all been validated. The dietary measures used in the questionnaires were assessed using test–retest methods for a previous evaluation study (Croker et al., 2012), and were shown to have reasonable reliability. There may be the potential for social desirability bias in self-reported outcomes, with parents overreporting positive intentions and desirable behaviours. Parental recognition of overweight in children is a predictor of behavioural intentions.