Overweight Adolescents With Obese Friends & Family More Likely To Misperceive Weight

Posted on October 2nd, 2009.

Kids and teens surrounded by overweight peers or parents are more likely to be indifferent to their own extra weight than kids surrounded by normal weight peers.

When school chums and parents are overweight or obese, one’s own weight seems to fit right in. The higher the BMI of their friends and family, the more kids are likely to understate their weight. A tendency corresponding to both boys and girls, regardless of socioeconomic class of their school or family.

“Peers and parents have an enormous impact on kids’ weight perception and when they live in environments in which people they see on a daily basis, such as parents and schoolmates, are overweight or obese, they may develop inaccurate perceptions of what constitutes appropriate weight status. So it is important that we help them correct their misperceptions and help them recognize that they may be at risk.” “Accurately perceiving oneself as overweight or obese is an important cue to take action,” says Jennifer J. McGrath, a psychology professor and director of the Pediatric Public Health Psychology Lab at Concordia University. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080917145405.htm

Many of us are parents of overweight adolescents or know adolescents who are overweight. Although the article advocated implementing obesity prevention programs in schools as a crucial way to inform and combat overweight adolescents ignorance, the truth is, it starts in the home. Unfortunately, many adolescents have cotton in their ears when it comes to council especially from their own parents and even less if the council is about weight loss! The best course of action is usually to lead by example. As hard as that sounds stubborn teenagers and adolescents, overweight or not, do notice change in healthy lifestyle behaviors.

It comes to mind the story of the mother who brought her child to Gandhi and told him to tell her son to stop eating candy. Gandhi said come back in one week. She did. He

: Image via Wikipedia

then told her little boy to ‘stop eating candy.’ Astounded, the mother asked why Gandhi could not do this one week earlier. “Because,” Gandhi replied “I too was eating candy last week.”

-admin, Thinexa