Parents of overweight children usually fail to recognize that their young child is overweight. Among parents of severely obese children, only 3% considered the child to be overweight and in fact, a much higher percentage (8%) actually considered them to be underweight, with the remaining vast majority thinking that their child's weight was normal.
The researchers surveyed 1,180 low-income families with children aged 1 to 5 years. Researchers measured obesity using the child's body mass index (BMI), which is calculated by taking the child's weight in kilograms and dividing it by the child's height in meters squared. The study showed some cultural differences in this phenomena, with Hispanic children being more likely to be overweight and their parents more likely to consider them normal or underweight. Many obese children were offered dessert as a reward for finishing their meal.
Combined annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies and the American Academy of Pediatrics May 19, 2000
Denial, Denial, Denial. I was clueless as to how commonly this was occuring. This study is a real wake up call that parents do not have thier feet planted in reality. It is hard to believe that only one in 20 parents of severly overweight children would consider their children overweight, and harder still to believe that nearly one in ten considered them to be underweight!
I guess parents deny their own obesity, so it is not suprising that they are overlooking it in their kids. Formula feeding starts children on the path to obesity right from the start and breastfeeding has been shown in a large study to reduce the incidence of obesity.
A simple way to measure your body mass and ideal weight can be found at:
http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm
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