How much are children and their parents objective about the children's eating behaviour and body composition?

Abstract

The primary objective of our research was to investigate the nutritional status in Belgrade schoolchildren (aged 12-15). The second objective was to compare the children and parents view about the children nutritional status. The study was carried out in two phases: (a) questionnaires for children and parents (questionnaire-c and questionnaire-p) were administrated; (b) anthropometrical measurement was conducted among children. There were 2263 participants, randomly chosen from seven Belgrade (Serbia and Montenegro) primary schools. At the end of the study, 1555 children completed the questionnaires and had been measured. According to our results, there were 18.1% boys and 11.3% girls who were overweight/obese. Children were more objective in estimating their nutritional status than their parents. Although the participants were offered free counselling, low response rate of only 4.71% was achieved, suggesting that parents should take an active and unbiased role in children's nutritional education.

Agreement between Weight Status and Perceived Body Size and the Association with Body Size Satisfaction in Children

“…This finding is in line with the results of two large studies conducted in the United States among adolescents and a smaller study among 8‐ to 11‐year‐old Latino children living in North Carolina . However, a study conducted in Serbia and Montenegro reported opposite results . The prevalence estimates of this latter study were somewhat different than in our study, with 15.6% of children having underweight as compared to 7.1% in ours.…”

“…Parents also tend to misperceive their child's body size . Two studies of adolescents suggested that parents' perceptions might be more accurate compared to the adolescent's self‐perceptions , although a third study suggested the inverse . Besides these studies in adolescence, much less is known about body size perceptions at younger ages.…”

Association between being overweight and oral health in Serbian schoolchildren

“…The PI and GI indexes need to be evaluated in the future oral health studies in children and adolescents. A potential lack of objectivity of the parents about the lifestyle habits of their children could be another limitation 30 . In addition, a potential selection bias in the participant recruitment at the two study sites was also possible, although our statistical analysis showed no significant differences in the variables of interest, apart from the nutritional status.…”

Social Desirability and Parental Reporting of Children's Health-Related Behaviours

“…Other research has found that children are actually more objective at estimating their own weight than their parents (Blaženčić-Mladenović et al, 2006). While over 70% of the overweight/obese girls in this study classified their weight status accurately, only 41% of their parents were able to do so.…”