Who is right, parents or WHO? Are parents just make belief or wishful thinking or denying reality or is there something wrong with the definition of obesity in children?
How reliably or accurately is obesity in children defined? Is there a widely accepted consensus on this definition?
It seems to be quite pretentious by the WHO to question parents like this?
The more obese children are diagnosed, the better the business for doctors?
I personally know one of my best high school friends would today probably be considered seriously obese. However, he did not really eat junk food, his eating habits were normal and he was a very athletic teenager doing a lot of sports. Thus, we considered him specially heavy built with a little bit of a belly and big face, but not obese and not fat.
Plus, during puberty does not the physical shape of some teenagers sometimes dramatically change like from chubby to tall and slender? So what does obesity in this context mean?
"Nearly two-thirds of European parents with children who are overweight or obese think their kids are underweight or normal weight, per a WHO report."
From the abstract:
"Unhealthy body weight in children affects physical and mental health, school performance and quality of life, while also raising the risk of obesity and noncommunicable diseases later in life. Reliable data are essential to guide action against childhood obesity and to track progress. To this end, WHO established the European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) in 2007. This is now the largest childhood obesity surveillance initiative in the world, with the participation of 48 countries in 2024.
This report presents findings from COSI’s sixth round (2022–2024), covering about 470 000 children aged 6–9 years across 37 countries, with additional information on family and health behaviours for over 150 000 children.
Overall, 25% of children aged 7–9 years were living with overweight (including obesity) and 11% with obesity
Large differences continue in prevalence between countries, with the prevalence of overweight ranging from 9–42% and prevalence of obesity ranging from 3–20%.
Unhealthy dietary habits were common, and only about half of children travel actively to school. These findings highlight that childhood obesity continues to pose a serious public threat to the Region and underscore that comprehensive policy action is urgently needed at international, national and local levels."
"... At the same time, parents of children living with overweight or obesity tend to underestimate their children’s weight status. ...
For the first time, COSI also reported on thinness – a reminder that undernutrition coexists with excess weight in several countries. This double burden of malnutrition highlights persistent inequality between and within countries. ...
New to COSI Round 6, data on parental perception revealed a major gap in awareness. Overall, nearly two thirds (66%) of children living with overweight were perceived by their parents to be underweight or normal weight.
In all countries with data available, more than half of the parents of children living with overweight underestimated their children’s weight status. ..."
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