Abstract
Introduction Parents play a critical role in their children's weight. This paper examines parents' perceptions about the challenges to helping their kids maintain or achieve a healthy weight. Methods We analyzed data in 2017 from a U.S. telephone poll conducted during October-November 2012 among parents or caregivers of children aged 2–17 years using a nationally representative sample of households. It included 667 White, 123 Black, and 167 Hispanic parents. Multiple logistic regressions were used to examine parent perceptions about the individual- and environmental-level challenges to helping their children maintain or achieve a healthy weight. Results Overall, 45% of children have parents who reported challenges helping the child eat to maintain or achieve a healthy weight, and 35% have parents who reported challenges for exercise. According to parents, most children consumed snacks between 3 pm and bedtime during the school week (83%), and 63% of those children had an unhealthy snack. Parents did not express much concern about unhealthy snacks; 80% of children had parents who said that they did not mind since their child generally ate healthy food. Children with Hispanic and Black parents were more likely than those with White parents to have parents reporting environment challenges, such as unhealthy foods in schools. Conclusions Helping children maintain a healthy weight through diet is a problem for many parents, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Differences by race/ethnicity in parent perceptions of food environment challenges to helping their child maintain or achieve a healthy weight suggest possible areas for future interventions.
Highlights
Parents play a critical role in their children’s weight. is paper examines parents’ perceptions about the challenges to helping their kids maintain or achieve a healthy weight
A randomly selected child from each sampled household was the focus of questions, and caregivers were screened for being able to answer questions about what that child had done the previous day in order to minimize biases in the estimates of children’s activities and consumption. us, the sample is representative of children in the United States aged 2–17 years, as described by knowledgeable caregivers. e final sample included 1,018 caregivers
Children with Black or Hispanic parents were more likely than children with White parents to have parents reporting there was unhealthy food available very close to their child’s school (White: 17%, Black: 41%, and Hispanic: 38%)
Summary
Parents play a critical role in their children’s weight. is paper examines parents’ perceptions about the challenges to helping their kids maintain or achieve a healthy weight. We analyzed data in 2017 from a U.S telephone poll conducted during October-November 2012 among parents or caregivers of children aged 2–17 years using a nationally representative sample of households. It included 667 White, 123 Black, and 167 Hispanic parents. Differences by race/ethnicity in parent perceptions of food environment challenges to helping their child maintain or achieve a healthy weight suggest possible areas for future interventions. Parents play a critical role in their children’s weight [5, 6] and can help their children develop and maintain healthy eating and physical activity habits. Parents consistently overestimate the healthfulness of their children’s diets and physical activity levels [11,12,13] and underestimate their children’s weight, often failing to recognize when their child is overweight or obese [14,15,16,17,18,19]
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