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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Interpreting Divergent Child Obesity Surveillance Signals During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing Parent-Reported
Carlos Liard-Muriente1, Paramita Dhar1
1Department of Economics, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut, USA.
Abstract:
This study assessed whether parent-reported national surveillance identified the change in child obesity that measured surveillance indicated across the COVID-19 pandemic. Using six waves of the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH; 2016-2023; n = 153,656) and two National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) releases bracketing the pandemic (2017 to March 2020 and August 2021 to August 2023; n = 4914), we estimated weighted obesity prevalence (BMI-for-age at or above the 95th percentile) among children aged 6-17. Parent-reported prevalence was 17.0% both before and after the pandemic. Measured prevalence was 21.3% prepandemic and 22.7% postpandemic, a difference whose confidence interval included zero. The measured-minus-reported gap was 4.3 and 5.7 percentage points pre- and postpandemic, respectively, and widened modestly but not significantly. A flat parent-reported trend is not, on its own, evidence that prevalence remained stable.
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