Parents often misjudge child’s weight, study suggests

Melbourne, October 20: Often misjudging their child’s unhealthy weight, as many as 40 percent of the Australian parents believe their children are normal, results of a new study suggest. The research held at the University of Melbourne highlights that a large spectrum of parents do not comprehend being overweight or underweight as a problem.

Also, the different methods of assessing children's weight - Body Mass Indexdefine (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) generate different results thereby making weight-to-heath comprehension graver.

2,100 Victorian children aged between four and 12 along with their parents were enrolled in the study.

Using both Body Mass Index and waist circumference methods, the researchers categorized children into “underweight", "overweight" and "average" groups. The results were then compared with the already recorded perceptions of their parents.

While, as high as 49 percent parents believed their overweight children weighed an average, healthy weight, nearly 43 per cent parents had over scored their child’s unhealthy underweight.

Also, compared to a girl’s parents, parents of boys were less likely to accurately identify their child being overweight.

Children too had troubles determining their size as only 50 per cent of underweight boys could correctly guess their weight.

Stating the findings of the study to be ‘worrying’, Pene Schmidt, the lead researcher of the study said, "parents are unlikely to take the necessary preventive actions if the perception of their child's weight - whether underweight or overweight - is incorrect."

With overweight children often growing up into overweight adults, childhood obesity is now recognized as a serious public health concern. Like adult obesity, childhood obesity too can lead to life-threatening conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep problems and cancerdefine.

Also weighing heavy emotionally, obese children often suffer from teasing and bullying by their peers, while some are harassed or discriminated against by their own family.

Schmidt thus has called for "greater education to help parents understand the healthy weight range for their child's age".