[Maternal perception of her child's weight and unrelated children less than 1 year old]

To evaluate the maternal perception of their child's weight (MPCW) and perception of unrelated children's weight.

Cross-sectional.

Maternal and Child Nursing Health Department at 6 Units of Family Medicine.

486 dyads (mother and child under 1 year).

The following question was applied: "I think my child is", and images were provided according the child's gender. Children's weight and height were measured.

A total of 20.5% of the mothers of overweight (OW) children accurately perceived this situation, while none of the mothers of obese (OB) children did (κ=0.14±0.03, Z=5.36, p=.001). By images, 63.3% of mothers of OW children and 33.3% of mothers of OB children perceived this situation (κ=0.01±0.02, Z=0.73, p=.46). Most mothers selected the image of OW child as the image of a healthy child (κ=-0.04±0.01, Z=-2.65, p=.008), the image of a child under 1 year (κ=-0.01±0.02, Z=-0.86, p=.38) and the image that they would like their child to look like (κ=0.0004±0.01, Z=0.02, p=.98).

The mothers do not perceive the OW-OB of their children.