Nursery World - Parents routinely underestimate their child's weight

Parents of obese children do not usually recognise their children’s condition, a new study has found.

Nearly a third of parents (31 per cent) underestimated their child’s weight, while only in the most extreme cases were parents aware of it, according to researchers.

Out of a group where 369 children were officially identified as very overweight, only four parents described their children as such.

The research leads to questions about the effectiveness of Government health campaigns to tackle obesity from the home, such its flagship Change4Life programme.

Recent figures show that one in ten children is now obese by the time they reach primary school, a trend which has been worsening over the past few decades.

The research also found that UK parents are additionally more likely to underestimate their child’s weight if they are from more deprived backgrounds or if their offspring is male, or if they are black or or south Asian heritage.

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