Are you keeping a watch on your child’s weight properly? If you think you are then here is one amazing fact that you must be aware of! According a recent study in the area of eating and weight related disorders by Dr. Pene Schmidt of University of Melbourne, 43% parents get it all wrong when it comes to judging their child’s weight. They believe their underweight or overweight child to be of right weight.
Some facts that this study reveled were as follows:
- Almost half of overweight children’s parents thought their child to be of correct weight.
- About 43% parent of underweight children’s considered their child to be of correct weight.
- Of the average weight child’s parents, more than 80% thought their child to be of average weight.
- Parents of male child usually reported him to be underweight as compared to the parents of female child.
- While lesser % accurately identified their child to be underweight, a lesser % of male child’s parents identified accurately an overweight child.
- Concern towards their child being overweight is prevalent in double the parents as compared to the parents in which the concern of their child being underweight is there.
- About 40% girls and 50% boys who were underweight could correctly assessed their weight.
The other important fact that this study reveled was that there is a difference in the classification of a child as overweight in the two methods that are used for such classification i.e. BMI and waist circumference method. More kids fall into overweight classification as per BMI method than as per waist circumference method.
The purpose of the research was to find out the assessment of the parents regarding the kid’s weight as they can take the required weight correction measures on time if they find the kids to be underweight or overweight. "Parents are unlikely to take the necessary preventative actions if the perception of their child’s weight – whether underweight or overweight – is incorrect,” Dr Schmidt says.
The study reveled a strange fact that there is a small percentage of parents who mistakenly take their underweight kids to be overweight and vice versa.
The study throws light on the need of a well-defined weight classification method for the information of the parents so that they are able to identify overweight or underweight kids easily and correctly.
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