Abstract
Objective
To assess how parents perceive long-term risks for developing obesity-related chronic
health conditions.
Methods
A Web-based nationally representative survey was administered to 502 US parents with
a 5- to 12-year-old child. Parents reported whether their child was most likely to
be at a healthy weight or overweight, and the probability that their child would develop
hypertension, heart disease, depression, or type 2 diabetes in adulthood. Responses
of parents of children with overweight and obesity were compared to those of healthy-weight
children using multivariate models.
Results
The survey had an overall response rate of 39.2%. The mean (SD) unadjusted parent
predicted health risks were 15.4% (17.7%), 11.2% (14.7%), 12.5% (16.2%), and 12.1%
(16.1%) for hypertension, heart disease, depression, and diabetes, respectively. Despite
underperceiving their child's current body mass index class, parents of children with
obesity estimate their children to be at greater risk for obesity-related health conditions
than parents of healthy-weight children by 5 to 6 percentage points. Having a family
history of a chronic disease, higher quality of care, and older parent age were also
significant predictors of estimating higher risk probabilities.
Conclusions
Despite evidence that parents of children who are overweight may not perceive these
children as being overweight, parents unexpectedly estimate greater future risk of
weight-related health conditions for these children. Focusing communication about
weight on screening for and reducing the risk of weight-related diseases may prove
useful in engaging parents and children in weight management.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 11, 2016
Accepted:
February 6,
2016
Received:
November 5,
2015
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Academic Pediatric Association
