One in two parents of overweight children believe their offspring’s weight is normal. A gap that poses a real public health challenge as childhood obesity increases.
“A beautiful baby”, “a strong constitution” … many are the excuses that parents give to justify the overweight of a child. But this is not bad faith, a study from Lincoln University in Nebraska recently found in Pediatrics. While childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years, parents’ perceptions of being overweight have not changed: according to their description, not a child is obese.
Boys more concerned
Two researchers reviewed 69 studies. According to their results, half of parents underestimate their child’s overweight. They are even 14% to say that their offspring is under the normal weight. Parents of obese children often describe him as normal weight, or a little above average. This is more often the case when the child in question is a boy, explains lead author of the study, Alyssa Lundahl: “There is a belief that boys are tall and strong. If they are not a little bigger, they are perceived as too small. Likewise, overweight parents themselves tend to describe their child as being of normal weight.
This gap between perception and reality poses a real public health problem. “Parents’ perception of a child’s weight plays a key role in the prevention of diabetes and its treatment,” say the authors at the start of the study. “Parents who underestimate the weight of their child may not encourage them to adopt healthy habits, to practice physical activity that optimizes their health and reduces the risk of obesity,” says Alyssa Lundahl.
A marked underestimation of the weight between 2 and 5 years
It is all the more problematic as this bad perception is strongest between 2 and 5 years. We now know that overweight children at 5 years old are the most at risk of obesity after 12 years. On the other hand, underlines the author of the study, “perceptions are more and more accurate with the age of the child. Parents are realizing that it is not just baby fat anymore and that they are not going to get rid of it anymore. But the benefits of early intervention are fading.
One solution to reduce the harmful effects of this discrepancy between actual weight and perceived weight: regularly check the evolution of the child’s weight with the pediatrician. But it is essential to involve parents in such a process: “We know that parents play a crucial role in preventing childhood obesity, and interventions are more successful if they involve parents,” says Alyssa Lundahl, author. principal of the study. “Previous studies have found that when parents’ perceptions are corrected, they start to take action and encourage their child to be more active, turn off the TV and go out to play,” she told Reuters Health.
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