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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Parental perceptions of their adolescent's weight status: the ECHO study
Mary O Hearst1, Nancy E Sherwood, Elizabeth G Klein
1Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55454, USA. hearst@umn.edu
Objectives:
To assess the correlates of parental classification of adolescent weight status.
Methods:
Measured adolescent weight status was compared to parent self-report perception data (n = 374 dyads) using multivariate analyses with interactions to identify characteristics associated with inaccurate parent classification of adolescent weight status.
Results:
Adolescent weight status was underestimated by 31% of parents. College-educated parents were more likely to underestimate the weight of their male adolescents (OR = 1.95) and overweight adolescents (OR = 4.0). Non-college-educated parents were 8.92 times as likely to misclassify overweight adolescents, regardless of the sex of the child.
Conclusions:
Parental perception may play a role in supporting adolescent's healthy weight-related behaviors.
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