Do mothers accurately identify their child's overweight/obesity status during early childhood? Evidence from a nationally representative cohort study

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dc.contributor.authorQueally, Michelle
dc.contributor.authorDoherty, Edel
dc.contributor.authorMatvienko-Sikar, Karen
dc.contributor.authorToomey, Elaine
dc.contributor.authorCullinan, John
dc.contributor.authorHarrington, Janas M.
dc.contributor.authorKearney, Patricia M.
dc.contributor.funderHealth Research Board
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-20T15:53:41Z
dc.date.available2018-09-20T15:53:41Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractBackground: Maternal recognition of overweight/obesity during early childhood is a key determinant in achieving healthy weight status in children. The aim of this study is to 1) investigate maternal perceptions of their child weight, focusing on whether or not mothers accurately identify if their child is overweight or obese at three years old and five years old; 2) identify the factors influencing maternal misperceptions regarding their child's weight at three years old and five years old, 3) ascertain if a failure to recognize overweight/obesity at three years old is associated with the likelihood of doing so at five years old. Methods: Using two waves of the longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland study data regarding child, maternal, and household characteristics as well as healthcare access and utilization variables were obtained for mothers when their children are three and five years old respectively. Multivariate logistic analysis was used to examine the factors associated with mothers inaccurately perceiving their child to be of normal weight status when the child is in fact either clinically overweight or obese. Results: In wave 2, 22% of mothers failed to accurately identify their child to be overweight or obese. This inaccuracy decreased to 18% in wave 3. A failure of mothers to identify their child's overweight/obesity was more likely to occur if the child was a girl (OR: 1.25) (OR: 1.37), had a higher birth weight (OR:1.00), if the mother was obese (OR: 1.50), (OR: 1.72) or working (OR:1.25) (OR:1.16) in wave 2 and wave 3, respectively. Other factors affecting the odds of misperceiving child's weight include gestation age, income and urban living. Conclusion: These findings suggest that mothers of overweight or obese three and five year olds show poor awareness of their child's weight status. Both child and mother characteristics play a role in influencing this awareness. Mothers unable to accurately identify their child's overweight or obesity status at three years old are likely to do again when the child is five years old. This study highlights the need for increased support to help improve mothers' understanding of healthy body size in preschool aged children.en
dc.description.sponsorshipHealth Research Board (Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement (ICE) ICE-2015-1026)en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.articleid56
dc.identifier.citationQueally, M., Doherty, E., Matvienko-Sikar, K., Toomey, E., Cullinan, J., Harrington, J. M., Kearney, P. M. and Choosing Healthy Eating for Infant Health (CHErIsH) study team. (2018) 'Do mothers accurately identify their child’s overweight/obesity status during early childhood? Evidence from a nationally representative cohort study', International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 15(1), 56 (9pp). doi: 10.1186/s12966-018-0688-yen
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/s12966-018-0688-y
dc.identifier.endpage9
dc.identifier.issn1479-5868
dc.identifier.journaltitleInternational Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activityen
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/6832
dc.identifier.volume15
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSpringer Natureen
dc.relation.urihttps://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-018-0688-y
dc.rights© 2018, the Authors. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectChildhood obesityen
dc.subjectMaternal perceptionen
dc.subjectPreschool overweight obesity identificationen
dc.titleDo mothers accurately identify their child's overweight/obesity status during early childhood? Evidence from a nationally representative cohort studyen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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