Is your child fat? You could be in denial

In the Americas, 31 percent of children are overweight or obese.

In the Americas, 31 percent of children are overweight or obese.

Published Mar 19, 2014

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London - Two-thirds of parents of overweight children cannot admit their youngsters are overweight – and some even think they need fattening up, a study found.

In some cases, parents of children who were so overweight they were classed as obese believed them to be too thin.

In England, 22 percent of children are overweight or obese by the time they start school, growing to 33 percent by age ten, and their condition can lead to heart disease, cancer or diabetes as an adult.

In the study, a team from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, looked at 16 000 children aged between two and nine from eight European countries, not including Britain.

They found that 63 percent of parents of overweight children thought them to be a normal size.

The International Congress on Obesity heard that perceptions were most skewed in southern European countries – where obesity rates are higher than in the north. - Daily Mail

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