Most parents can't tell if their children are obese: study

The majority of parents are no longer able to tell whether their children are overweight, a ground-breaking study of how British families perceive body size will reveal this week.

Even when their children are clinically obese, at least one-third of parents -- particularly fathers -- believe they are the normal weight for their age.

Research to be presented at a conference shows they no longer recognize a healthy body shape for a child.

The study has alarming implications for Government plans to fight fatness, the country's largest public health epidemic.

If families cannot spot obesity in their own children they are highly unlikely to follow much of the health advice being issued.

Researcher Alison Jeffery, who carried out the study, said: "It looks like the health messages are falling on deaf ears. We'll be pouring money down the drain on this unless parents become more aware of what constitutes a healthy weight."

As the average weight of British children soars, traditional body images have become so confused that some parents are complaining to doctors that their children are underweight when they are actually the right weight.

Jeffery, a researcher at the Peninsula Medical School of Exeter and Plymouth Universities, studied 300 children and adults, asking each parent to describe their own weight and that of their seven-year-old child.

The children were shown a chart of several different child body shapes and asked to describe which shape fitted them. The parents were shown it and asked which shape most corresponded with that of their child.

Just 25 percent of adults with overweight children recognized the problem. None of the fathers identified their sons as overweight, even when they were. More worryingly, 33 percent of the mothers and 57 percent of the fathers described obese children as normal.

In the study, part of a long-term investigation into how diabetes may develop at an early age, 7 percent of the boys were overweight and 8 percent obese. The figures for the girls were worse: 10 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Jeffery found no link between the parents' fat awareness and their class, education or income.

However, in a sign that girls face more discrimination about their size, Jeffery found that both mothers and fathers were quicker to recognize overweight in daughters than sons.