Curtin University has worked collaboratively to determine that many Western Australian parents misjudge their child\u2019s weight status and as a result, majority express no intention to help their child achieve a healthy weight.<\/p>\n
Dr Christina Pollard, Curtin\u2019s School of Public Health, said in Western Australia (WA), one-quarter of children aged between five and 15 years are overweight or obese and this can have significant health impacts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aim of this research was to report on parents\u2019 perceptions of their child\u2019s weight status, body mass index (BMI) and intended actions regarding their child\u2019s weight,\u201d Dr Pollard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe study found that parents often perceive their child to be in a lower BMI category than is actually the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result of these misconceptions, more than half the parents with children who were above or below the healthy BMI range, said they intended to \u201cdo nothing\u201d about their child\u2019s weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evidence suggests that overweight or obesity in childhood is associated with developmental, mental health and physical health problems, as well as premature mortality and morbidity during adulthood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe results of this research reinforce the importance of population-level, parent-focussed interventions targeting perceptions of children\u2019s weight,\u201d Dr Pollard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorrecting body weight misperceptions and increasing awareness of appropriate weight management is a public health priority affecting growth and development in the short term and chronic disease risk in later life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Data was collected from 4,437 parents as part of the Department of Health\u2019s Western Australian Health and Wellbeing Surveillance System.<\/p>\n
The research project was undertaken in collaboration and with the support of Department of Health.<\/p>\n
The paper, titled Parents\u2019 perceptions of their child\u2019s weight status and intention to intervene: a Western Australian cross-sectional population survey, 2009 -12 <\/em>has been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Curtin University has worked collaboratively to determine that many Western Australian parents misjudge their child\u2019s weight status and as a result, majority express no intention to help their child a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-18496","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/18496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/18496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=18496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}