OBJECTIVE: To review the current literature about parent´s ability to perceive the body weight of their children, the beliefs related to weight, the factors that influence their perception, as well as the possible actions to enhance the awareness of parents about their children's excess of weight and it's consequences. DATA SOURCES: The databases used in the research were: Medline, SciELO and Scopus. Studies from 2000-2010 addressing the parental perception of children's body weight were included. DATA SYNTHESIS: The parents perception of their children's body weight was generally poor, despite the diversity of the samples studied across different regions, socio-economic status and educational levels. Many parents of overweight children do not recognize or do not consider overweight/obesity of their children as a health problem. The wrong perceptions were frequently associated with factors like children's age (harder to perceive the excess of weight in younger children), gender (girl's excess of weight is more frequently noticed), poor education and misunderstanding of the growth curves. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of perception and awareness of parents about the nutritional status of children is one of the factors that act against the success of the prevention and the treatment of obesity.
obesity; child; parent-child relations; weight perception
