Childhood obesity is common in families in which the parents are junk-food lovers, dine out frequently and spend little time eating with their kids, the Formosa Cancer Foundation said yesterday.
Those are three of the four signs or behaviors commonly observed among families whose children’s body mass index (BMI) surpasses standard levels, foundation deputy chief executive Tsai Li-jiuan (蔡麗娟) said.
Another sign is that parents have little knowledge about obesity, she said.
The foundation conducted a study of the dietary behavior of 139 elementary school students whose BMI fell within the standard range of 18.5 to 24, and their parents, as well as 130 students diagnosed as obese, and their parents, from March 11 to April 15.
The study found that among the group of parents whose children are overweight, 35 percent said they “often” eat junk food or do so “when they are busy,” and eat more meat than vegetables and fruit.
More than 60 percent of the parents in the group said the time they spend dining with their children never exceeds 30 minutes.
More than 40 percent said they “never” cook or do so only “occasionally.”
The study also found that 20 percent of the parents in the group think their children are normal in terms of physical size, and that nearly 20 percent are unaware that their children suffer from health-endangering obesity.
In comparison, only 16.5 percent of the parents in the other group said they occasionally eat fast food and nearly 80 percent said they spend more than 30 minutes per meal dining with their children.
The percentage of parents in the standard group who cook more than three days a week reached 74 percent, according to the study.
Tsai said the researchers also found that the parents of overweight children do not stop their kids from eating unhealthy foods and allow them to take snacks to school.
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