Premium
Parents with overweight children two and five years of age did not perceive them as weighing too much
Author(s) -
Berggren Sara,
Roswall Josefine,
Alm Bernt,
Bergman Stefan,
Dahlgren Jovanna,
AlmquistTangen Gerd
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.14174
Subject(s) - overweight , medicine , anthropometry , demography , confidence interval , odds ratio , pediatrics , odds , obesity , logistic regression , pathology , sociology
Aim This study examined whether the parents of children who were overweight at two and five years of age perceived their children as being too heavy and related the findings to sociodemographic factors. Methods The data collection included parental questionnaires and anthropometric data from a longitudinal birth cohort of 2666 children born in the south‐west region of Sweden in 2007–2008. Results We found that 14.9 and 11.8% of the children were considered overweight or obese at the age of two and five, but 96.4 and 87.1% of their parents perceived their weight to be just about right at these ages. The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.001). Parents who were overweight themselves and had a low educational level were associated with a higher probability of misperception: at two years of age, the odds ratio was 2.75 (95% confidence interval 1.80–4.21), and at the age of five, it was 1.92 (1.24–2.97). Conclusion Most parents did not perceive that their overweight children weighed too much, but their judgement improved as the child got older. Parents who were overweight or had a low educational level were more likely to misperceive their child's weight. Health Care professionals need to be aware of this gap in perception.