Parents of overweight children are often in denial over their kids' weight, a recent study found.
Led by researchers from Imperial College London, the study found that three quarters of parents with overweight children are in denial regarding their children's weight and 77 percent of parents with an overweight child refuse to admit their child is on the heavy side. These findings suggest that obesity has been normalized among many parents, according to the researchers.
Those who accepted that their child was too heavy supported it by attributing it to "baby fat" and their genes. Still other parents claimed that their child was overweight because they had big bones.
Among all of these parents, only 41 percent accepted that their child's health might be at risk in the future.
Dr. Sonia Saxena and her colleagues interviewed 579 parents whose children were deemed overweight.
"There was disbelief that these measurements were accurate. They told us they looked around and saw other children seemed to be very similar and so they didn't understand why they were being singled out," Saxena told the Times.
Earlier this week, another study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln released their findings that nearly half of parents with an overweight child are in denial about their child's size. The research showed that parents believed their child was slimmer than they actually were. Others with an obese child thought their children were just normal or at least only slightly heavy, while one in seven parents whose child was a healthy weight worried they were too skinny.
Alyssa Lundahl, lead author of the study, suggested parents who failed to recognize the problem were letting their children down.
"We know that parents play a very crucial role in preventing childhood obesity," she said. "When parents' perceptions are corrected, they do start to take action and encourage their children to become more active and maybe turn off the TV and go outside and play."
