Parenting efficacy and its relationship to the prevention of childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity has become a topic of interest for the health sciences research community due to the childhood obesity epidemic. Pediatric nurse practitioners are in the frontline of prevention for children who are obese or at risk of becoming obese. Serving in this role requires the nurses' ability to measure parenting practices, parents' inner beliefs, and parental control over their child's eating practices. Questionnaires and other tools are needed to understand parents' thoughts on how satisfied they are as parents, their locus of control in their parent-child relationship, and how competent they feel in the parenting role. Many parenting scales related to self-efficacy, competence, locus of control, and satisfaction have been developed over the past decades, but little research development has occurred in relation to child's eating behaviors within nursing. This article will review the current parent efficacy literature and examine its relationship to childhood obesity.