ESPEN 2013 - Late breaking abstract submission

Late Breaking Abstract

ESPEN13-1834

PARENTAL PERCEPTION AND ACTUAL WEIGHT STATUS OF THEIR OFFSPRING

C. P. Borges ^1,*A. M. Cardoso ¹R. S. Freitas ²

¹URAP, ACES Alto-Tâmega e Barroso, ARS Norte, Chaves, ²General Medicine, Centro Hospitalar Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, EPE, Vila Real, Portugal

Rationale: It was our goal to study the parents awareness of their offspring bodyweight.

Methods: All students that attended the 5^th grade at the Group of Schools in Chaves were evaluated. Body weight was measured by a calibrated scale and height with a stadiometer. It was delivered a  questionnaire to the children parents about their children weight status, health beliefs, family habits, anthropometric data and weight perception. Children weight status was classified according to the CDC growth chart curves. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v.17.0. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to ascertain normal distribution. Two tailed t-test was used to evaluate the correlation between parent’s and children weight

Results: 192 children, mean age 10.83±0.84 years, were evaluated. Mean weight was 41.63± 9.87 Kg, mean height 146.60±7.53cm. We observed that 12.57% of the children were obese, 20.42% overweight, 11.52% at risk of overweight, 51.83% had normal weight and 3.66% had low body weight.68.75% of the parents referred that their offspring weight was normal and 63.9% answered that in their family aggregate and close relatives didn’t have any weight problem. 80% of the parents of the overweight children group believed that their offspring weight was normal although 75% of the parents of obese children group recognized that the later had a weight problem.We verified a very negligible positive correlation between the father’s weight and their offspring weight (r=0.169, p= 0.045) and a moderate positive correlation between mother’s weight and offspring weight (r=0.319, p<0.0001).

Conclusion: We conclude that most of the parents don’t recognize that their children are overweight or even the existence of that problem in themselves or close family. Although when the weight problem scales to obesity most parents manages to recognize that their children have excess weight.

Disclosure of Interest: None Declared

Keywords: Children, NutritionObesity