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Dr Eric Robinson from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society and Assistant Professor Angelina Sutin from Florida State University College of Medicine examined whether parental perceptions of a child's weight were associated with weight gain across childhood.
The results of their study, entitled 'Parental Perception of Weight Status and Weight Gain across Childhood', have been published in the Journal of Pediatrics.
The study shows that children whose parents perceived their weight as being 'overweight', as opposed to 'about the right weight', gained more weight (increase in BMI-Z score) from baseline to follow up in all analyses.
This finding did not depend on the actual weight of the child; the association between perceiving one's child as being overweight and future weight gain was similar among children whose parents accurately and inaccurately believed their child was overweight.
Dr Eric Robinson, said: "Contrary to popular belief, parental identification of child overweight is not protective against further weight gain. Rather, it is associated with more weight gain across childhood. Further research is needed to understand how parental perceptions of child weight may counter-intuitively contribute to obesity."
To read the full article, click on the link below.
Category(s):Child Development, Parenting
Source material from (e) Science News
