Parents less likely to recognize if their child has a weight problem
Parents may be underestimating if their child is overweight or obese, according to a new poll from NPR ,the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
Parents less likely to recognize if their child has a weight problem
Anna Nguyen, Healthy Kids blog Editor
As parents, we often don’t like to admit when our kids have a problem, and a new poll confirms that usually happens when it comes to them being overweight.
According to their parents, 15 percent of children are a little or very overweight, while national data suggest more than twice as many, or 32 percent of all children, are overweight or obese, found a poll conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard School of Public Health.
Underestimating a child’s risk of being overweight or obese could impact them as adults. Adult obesity is associated with a number of serious health conditions including heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
“Better nutrition and more physical activity can help turn this epidemic around, and parents have a unique role to play,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, RWJF president and CEO in a release.
In addition, only 20 percent of children in households that participated in this poll had a parent who was concerned that his or her child will be overweight as an adult. However, it is estimated that 69 percent of adults are overweight, including 36 percent who are obese and an additional 6 percent who have “extreme obesity..”
The poll assessed a nationally representative sample of children ages 2 to 17 through their parents or caregivers who knew what the children ate, drank, and did the day before the poll.
“People often have a hard time making the connection between national problems and their own families,” said Gillian SteelFisher, PhD, assistant director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program and research scientist in the HSPH Department of Health Policy and Management in a release. “Tackling these blind spots can be a difficult, even if necessary, element of public education.”
Here are other key findings from the poll:
- More than four in 10 children have parents who say it is difficult to make sure their kids eat to maintain or achieve a healthy weight, and roughly a third of children have parents who say it is difficult to make sure their kids exercise this way.
- More than half of children (60 percent) ate or drank something that can lead to unhealthy weight gain between 3 p.m. and bedtime, as perceived by their parents.
- Parents face hurdles in trying to help their kids. For 43 percent of children, parents say the amount of advertising of foods that can lead to unhealthy weight gain presents a problem for them in trying to help their child achieve or maintain a healthy weight. For roughly a third of children, parents report that they face the following problems: many such foods are offered at lunch at school (33 percent ); the costs of exercise equipment, gym memberships or team fees is too high (33 percent ); there aren’t good sidewalks near home, so the family drives instead of walking (31 percent); and there are few places that do not serve these foods where the child can spend time with friends (31 percent.).
- Only 46 percent of children live in households where the family ate together without distractions such as a cell phone, iPod, or laptop. Research suggests that meals without distractions, particularly TV, are associated with lower obesity rates.
- Nearly all children (96 percent ) attended family events in the past year where foods with “high fat or sugar content, like chips, fried foods, fast foods or sweets” were served. Sizable shares of these children live in households where these foods are felt to be “an important part of family traditions” (39 percent ) and where “it doesn’t feel like a celebration” without them (32 percent).
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the parents who don't recognize their children as overweight also don't realize that they are also wicked huge.— DixonBunz- Americans are getting bigger by the day, the studies prove it but just look around. It's more evident when you travel outside of the US and then come back and look around at the airport and see how bid we have become. Now TV shows like Mike and Molly, magazines and others are trying to portray it's OK to be huge. Clothing manufacturers are making clothing sizes smaller to make you think your fitting into smaller clothes. We have become a fat, un-healthy nation.— PDJ
- We have done this to ourselves as Americans. We have been brainwashed into believing that being workaholics is good and patriotic. Corporate America has taken advantage of that philosophy along with the bad economy and created an environment where the 5-day/4-hr workweek is just a distant memory, and 6-day/70-hr workweeks are the norm. These insane hours which are becoming more and more common, take people away from their families, where they can take an active role in preparing healthy, homecooked meals. Kids are now on their own, eating McDonalds and frozen dinners. These increased hours also take away time for exercise. When kids see their parents not exercising, they will not exercise. We need to change as a society and change our priorities before we see changes in our collective waistlines. Unfortunately I don't see that happening in any of our lifetimes— VoiceofReason50
- Parents have to take control. Sodas were banned in our house when our kids were growing up. We only served milk, water and 100% natural juices. We also tried to limit the juices to an extent because of high natural sugar content. 75-80% of the time we had family dinners together. Chips and pretzels were limited We also rarely had any chocolate candies in the house except maybe at holidays. We never actually banned our kids from anything. But we (ok... my wife), was careful about what was in the house to eat. We also led by example and we ate what they had to eat. Today our kids are grown, slim and active and have a love for fruits and still rarely do sodas.— Tiller
- You need a license to drive and a license to marry but any female can give birth without knowing anything about raising children. Looking at the morbidly obese people in center city it's easy to tell which people's kids will be obese.— Ralph 1
- @ DixonBunz, my thought exactly. Also, exercise equipment, gym memberships,? wth? There is such as thing as walking, running. Have to admit to the lack of sidewalks, safe crosswalks in many towns, but those same towns do have free playgrounds, basketball, even tennis courts. We pay for this and their nasty lunch.— bucky95
- People in America used to have to *work* for there money, the majority of the obese receive free handouts.— easy
- Othar: Just because food is readily available doesn't mean you have to stuff your face.— p-diddy
- It is because corporate america has taken over our food chain supplying us with high-fat, high sodium food that is cheap to make and easy to distribute.— flyers2thecup
flyers2thecup, so then who forces it into your mouth? Personal responsibility dude— 835union- Hey Voice of Unreason59. I can assure you it's not the long hours at work that is making us obese. It's the inability to control ourselves. Take some responsibility for gosh sake. As for corporations serving us bad food, you can go to the grocery store and buy lots of good food also. We are the ones who chose to eat potato chips and cheese puffs. We could just as easily choose walnuts and fish. Instead, we are weak creatures whose bodies were created in a time of famine. Now, we live in a time of abundance. We are programmed to consume calories to prevent starvation when the game isn't running or the wild grains fail. Now, there is food everywhere, all the time. It's up to each of us to shut our mouths and stop gorging ourselves on processed foods. It has nothing to do with long hours at the office or Tastykakes. It has everything to do with our own decisions in how we run our lives.— PFCzar
