The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of parents to estimate the weight status of preschool children attending the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) day-care centers using three different tools. A total of 100 parent-child pairs attending to all the existing IMSS day-care centers in Ensenada (n = 9) completed a questionnaire on the perception of children's weight status us...

BACKGROUND Empiric studies find that contextual factors affect individual weight status over and above individual socioeconomic characteristics. Given increasing levels of obesity, researchers are examining how the food environment contributes to unhealthy weight status. An important change to this environment is the increasing availability of away-from-home eating establishments such as restau...

BACKGROUND Health professionals working in primary care and public health have opportunities to address body weight status issues with their patients through face-to-face contact. The objectives of this all-Ireland project are: 1. to assess the attitudes, current practices/behaviours and knowledge of key health professional groups on body weight status; 2. to assess the health professional grou...

OBJECTIVE To examine whether and to what extent the relationship between television viewing and children's weight status differs according to parental weight status. DESIGN Population-level survey including in-home and telephone interview components. SETTING United States. PARTICIPANTS Representative sample of children aged 6 to 19 years in 2002 (n = 1483). MAIN EXPOSURE Hours of televi...

OBJECTIVE To examine the accuracy of maternal ability to classify their children's weight status correctly using a verbal and a visual classification instrument and to detect significant correlates of maternal misperceptions. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Primary schools in four counties from north, west, central and south Greece. SUBJECTS A representative sample of 1858 primary-s...

BACKGROUND Obesity is disproportionately prevalent among many racial/ethnic minority communities. The efficacy of weight control efforts in these groups may depend on individual's ability to accurately perceive their weight status. We examined whether racial/ethnic differences exist in weight status misperception among overweight adults. METHODS Nationally-representative data from the Nationa...

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship of self-reported weight status and dieting to actual weight and height in a cross-sectional nationally representative sample of young adolescents. METHODS Weights and heights were obtained on 1932 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. Information on adolescents' perception of weight status, d...

INTRODUCTION Obesity is highly prevalent among American Indians, and effective prevention efforts require caregiver involvement. We examined American Indian (AI) parents' assessment of and level of concern about their kindergarten child's weight status. METHODS We collected baseline data (fall of 2005 and fall of 2006) on children and their parents or caregivers for a school-based obesity pre...