Children's Weight
Results of a American College of Gastroenterology’s 73rd Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando revealed that many parents do not accurately perceive their children as overweight or at risk for adult obesity. Obesity is often accompanied by an increased risk for a wide array of diseases stemming either from being overweight, or lifestyle habits that brought about being overweight.
In the study, 46 parents of children ages 5 to 9 with a BMI in the 70th percentile or higher (95th and higher is overweight and 85th and above is at-risk) were chosen for the study. Child height and weight were measured during a routine pediatric visit. Parents were then mailed a series of questionnaires which included questions on their perception of their child’s current weight, and whether they perceived that their child was at risk for developing obesity as an adult.
Despite the elevated BMI of their children, less than 13% of the parents of overweight children reported their child as currently overweight. Fewer than one-third perceived that their child’s risk for adult obesity was above average or very high.
This misconception is despite the fact that 17% of children in the U.S. between the ages of 2 and 19 are diagnosed with obesity. An even more startling fact is that children in within that age range who are currently suffering from childhood obesity have a 70% likelihood of growing into adult obesity. This number is bumped an additional 10% if they have a parent, or both, with obesity or overweight problems.
Since parents are probably the most influential factor in laying the foundation for a child’s weight problems, it’s obvious something need to be done to curb the parental disillusionment with childhood obesity and overweight and, in turn, the obesity-overweight epidemic across the world.
In another study, in the U.K., only 1.9% of parents with children at risk for overweight or obesity accurately identified as being at risk for or being overweight. Only 17.1 percent of parents with overweight children accurately identified their child as being at risk for or being overweight.
In New York, the parents who had concern for their children’s’ overweight, 76% thought it was a concern similar to those about sunburn, while 67% found that concerns about overweight and obesity were similar to prolonged television watching.
Although the numbers only say so much, underlying, yet common, quirks identified by researchers were that a parent’s inability to recognize their child’s risk for obesity was especially pronounced if the parents themselves were suffering from obesity or overweight. This is despite the jaw dropping 80% chance a overweight or obese child has of adult obesity if they have one or more parents who are overweight or obese. Cultural influences also may have played a factor. More black women reported being satisfied with their larger size and overweight than white women.