Perceções parentais sobre estado nutricional, imagem corporal e saúde em crianças com idade escolar

Objective: to evaluate parental perceptions of nutritional status, body image, and health in children attending the 1st cycle of basic education. Methods: we assessed BMI and parents’ perceptions of body image and health of their children by questionnaires sent to all parents of children enrolled in schools belonging to the Vertical Group of Anes Cernache and Vila d’Este in Vila Nova de Gaia, at the beginning of the academic year 2008/2009 (n = 936); the study included 532 children and parents who completed the questionnaires (57% of the sample population). Parental perceptions were compared with the percentile of the child’s BMI to assess the deviation from the correct perception. This was a descriptive-correlational study. Results: we found that 49.9% of parents had a distorted perception in relation to nutritional status and 37.9% had this in relation to body image. It was found that only child’s age was related to parental perception of body image. Parents had a “good” perception of health. Conclusion: these results are consistent with others in the area and alert practitioners to the need for more effective health education to prevent and detect early cases of children at risk of becoming obese.