Parent's knowledge about childhood obesity

Abstract

Introduction. Childhood overweight or obesity has become a worldwide health problem due to its continuous increase of prevalence and its serious impact on health. In obesity, like in any other chronic pathology that appears in childhood, parents have an important role in monitoring the body weight and preventing future complications. Aim of the study. The aim of this study was to identify parent's knowledge about childhood obesity and their vision about the nutrition status of their children. Materials and methods. Our cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of six months ( july-november 2019). In this study participated parents with children aged 0-18 years, from Brasov and Mures counties, the sample size being 529 persons. The informations were acquired with the help of a self-administered questionnaire and the statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. Results. After interpreting the data, it can be said that out of the 258 girls included in the study, 34 are obese and 30 are overweight. Regarding the male, out of the total of 271 persons, 49 are obese and 54 are overweight. The correlation between the parent's vision of the nutrition status of their children and the body mass index interpreted with the help of percentiles was statistically significant (p=0.0001). Parents who don't consider their children being obese, have, in fact, 19 obese children and 33 who are overweight. A number of 47 parents consider that they have obese children, but among them 85.1% are really obese and 14.9% are overweight. Conclusions. Firstly, it has been reported more cases of obesity and overweight among boys. Secondly, parents who have obese or overweight children, have a more objective appreciation of their nutritional status and are aware of the health problem their children are facing.