Many parents get their children's weight wrong

Oct 20 2008

Australian researchers have found that parents are often mistaken in assessing whether their child is under or overweight and as many as 4 in 10 parents get it wrong.

According to research from the University of Melbourne, more than 4 in 10 parents with underweight and overweight children mistakenly believe their children are in the average weight range.

The study also found that different methods of assessing children's weight - such as BMI or waist circumference - result in different rates of children being identified as overweight or underweight as according to BMI, more children were classified as overweight, than compared to waist circumference (WC).

The study by Dr. Pene Schmidt, also found that children who are not in the average weight range, are also more likely to over or underestimate their body size and a small number of parents believe their underweight children are overweight or that their overweight children are underweight.

Dr. Schmidt suggests the research indicates a need to overhaul the ways in which children's weight is classified and provide better information to parents about appropriate weight at both ends of the spectrum.

Dr. Schmidt says parents are unlikely to take the necessary preventative actions if the perception of their child's weight - whether underweight or overweight - is incorrect.

For the study Dr. Schmidt from the University's School of Behavioural Science, analysed data from a survey of more than 2,100 Victorian children and their parents aged from 4-12 and the research is thought to be the first to examine parental perceptions of overweight children, as well as attitudes toward underweight children using both BMI and WC.

Dr. Schmidt compared the objective measures of children's weight with subjective perceptions of whether parents and children thought they were overweight, average weight or underweight and found that 43% of parents with underweight children were incorrectly considered to be average weight by their parents - while 49% of parents with overweight children incorrectly believed their child was average weight.

More than 8 out of 10 parents correctly identified average weight children as being average weight but a very small percentage of parents assessed underweight children as being overweight (1.4%) and overweight children as being overweight (2.5% ).

Parents were more likely to report that their sons were underweight and that their girls were overweight and were less likely to accurately identify that their child was underweight and the parents of boys were less likely to accurately identify their child as being overweight - twice as many parents expressed concern about their child being overweight compared to underweight.

Only 4 out of 10 underweight girls and half of underweight boys correctly assessed their weight.

Dr. Schmidt says the results show that parents and children are struggling to determine whether they were the correct weight and indicates a need for more research to determine how to best define children's weight status and how to communicate this to children and parents.

Dr. Schmidt says the study also suggests a strong social bias among both parents and children towards thinness and she says it is important that public health campaigns, directed towards the prevention of obesity, are getting through to the right groups.

Dr. Schmidt says there is a particular need to ensure that the focus on reducing the number of overweight children does not have the adverse impact of increasing the number of underweight children.

Dr. Schmidt who was recently awarded a Doctor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, works clinically in the field of eating and weight related disorders and she has called for greater education to help parents understand the healthy weight range for their child's age.