BMI Reporting and Accuracy of Child's Weight Perception

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Public Health Interventions
• Childhood Obesity

Background:

• Accurate weight perception in children is crucial for health behaviors.
• School-based BMI screening and reporting are common public health strategies.
• The impact of these reports on children's self-awareness of their weight category requires investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if school-based body mass index (BMI) reports influence children's accuracy in self-reporting their weight category.
• To analyze these effects on the overall child population and specific demographic subgroups.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of data from the Fit Study, a randomized controlled trial involving 4690 children receiving BMI reports and 4975 control children.
• Utilized multinomial logistic regression models to estimate the impact of BMI reporting on weight category accuracy.
• Calculated average marginal effects to quantify the change in probability of accurate self-reporting due to BMI reports.

Main Results:

• No significant overall impact of BMI reporting on children's self-reported weight accuracy was detected.
• Exploratory analyses indicated increased accuracy for Black children after one reporting round (10.0 pp).
• Further increases in accuracy were observed for Asian children, 5th graders, and those with BMI <5th percentile with two reporting rounds.

Conclusions:

• BMI reporting demonstrates limited efficacy in enhancing children's weight perception accuracy.
• While certain subgroups showed improved accuracy, these findings require confirmation through future prospective studies.