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Parental perception of weight status influences weight gain in children
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Children who are perceived to be overweight by their parents are more likely to gain weight than children who are perceived to be of average weight, regardless of the weight of the child, according to study findings presented at the European Obesity Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Eric Robinson, PhD, of the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and Angelina Sutin, PhD, of Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee, Florida, analyzed data from 3,557 children and their parents participating in the older of two 2004 cohorts of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Parents reported their perceptions of their child’s weight status; child’s weight, height and BMI were assessed at visits every 2 years from age 4 to 5 years through 12 to 13 years. At baseline (aged 4-5 years in 2004), 19.7% of children had overweight or obesity; 75.4% had average weight. The researchers assessed parental perceptions of child weight status and examined changes in child BMI z scores from age 4 to 13 years.
The researchers found that all children gained weight, but children whose parents perceived them to be “overweight” gained more weight from baseline to follow-up vs. children with parents who perceived them to be “about the right weight.”
“Moreover, we found that this association was observed across childhood, with parental perceptions of child overweight consistently predicting more weight gain across all of the 2-year intervals during the study,” the researchers wrote. “Thus, a parent identifying his or her child as overweight was not protective against weight gain, but was instead associated with greater weight gain across childhood.”
Researchers also found no interactions between parents identifying their own child as overweight and their BMI z score.
“This suggests that the association between identifying one’s own child as being overweight and weight gain was not dependent on the actual BMI of the child,” the researchers wrote. “Both accurate and inaccurate identification of child overweight were similarly associated with weight gain in this study.” – by Regina Schaffer
Reference:
Robinson E, Sutin AR. Pediatrics. 2016;doi:10.10.1542/peds.2015-3957. Presented at: European Obesity Summit; June 1-4, 2016; Gothenburg, Sweden.
Disclosure: Robinson and Sutin report no relevant financial disclosures.