Nutritional status in preschool children: current trends of mother's body perception and concerns

Abstract

Despite signs of a positive trend, mothers continue to show difficulty in recognizing the children's nutritional status, so effective public health strategies to increase parents' awareness could be the first step in an effort to prevent childhood obesity.

Maternal perception of children's nutritional status in the Federal District, Brazil

“…In this context, the appropriate perception of children's nutritional status by their parents (especially their mother) becomes essential for the early recognition of childhood overweight and obesity [8–10]. Mothers usually have a greater responsibility over children's diet and education, and their perception of child's nutritional status has shown to have an influence on maternal attitudes and practices related to child's food intake [10–12].…”

“…Mothers usually have a greater responsibility over children's diet and education, and their perception of child's nutritional status has shown to have an influence on maternal attitudes and practices related to child's food intake [10–12]. …”

“…Previous studies have found a high prevalence of inadequate maternal perception of children' nutritional status and revealed that mothers of overweight children tend to underestimate their child' nutritional status and thus be unconcerned about the consequences of childhood overweight [4, 10, 13]. Hochdorn et al [14] verified in a systematic review that this occurs globally, and that most of the studies carried out in Latin America, East Asia and Europe noted underestimation of the nutritional status of overweight and obese children.…”

“…Hochdorn et al [14] verified in a systematic review that this occurs globally, and that most of the studies carried out in Latin America, East Asia and Europe noted underestimation of the nutritional status of overweight and obese children. Furthermore, many mothers believe that childhood overweight is a sign of good health and that overweight will be resolved later as the child grows [10]. With the recurrent increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents, mothers may also consider overweight as normal, especially if there are many individuals with this condition in their family or community [8].…”

The Indirect Effect of Family Cohesion on Children’s Weight Status Through Maternal Quality of Life and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

“…In children/adolescents with overweight/obesity they were measured by the nutritionist whereas for children/adolescents with healthy-weight these data were self-reported. This could prevent accurate answers regarding these measures in the healthy-weight group, specifically taking into account that research has found that mothers can be unreliable at reporting their child's weight (Aparício et al, 2013;Silva, Junior, Nascimento, Bertoli, & Gallo, Leone, 2016).…”