Poor Body Size Judgment Can Lead to Tolerance of Obesity, Says Study of Mostly Hispanics

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Seven in every 10 obese adults underestimate how much someone weighs, according to a new study, Health Canal reports.

The study, which analyzed the body image perceptions of 253 mothers and their children (82.2% of them Hispanic), found that mothers of overweight/obese children also underestimated their children’s size.

Overweight and obese children also often misjudged their own body size, and their obese mothers’ size.

The study found that:

71.4% of obese adults and 35.1% of overweight adults underestimated size, compared with 8.6 percent of people of normal weight.

Among overweight and obese children, 86.3 percent and 62.3 percent, respectively, thought they weigh less than they do vs. 14.9 percent of children of normal weight.

About 80% of mothers of overweight children underestimated their child’s weight compared with 7.1% of mothers of children of normal weight and 23.1% of mothers with obese offspring. Children with obese mothers, too, found weight difficult to judge, with the vast majority of them incorrectly classifying an adult’s size.

“The failure to recognize abnormal weight occurs more often among overweight or obese mothers and children. Children of obese mothers often also underestimate adult size, suggesting that tolerance of being overweight is common among children exposed to obese parents,” said Dr. Tracy Paul of Columbia University Medical Center in the Health Canal report. “This is worrying, as flawed weight perception impedes one’s ability to recognize obesity and its risks as a personal health issue.”