This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Laraway, K. A. Articles by Paul, I. M. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Laraway, K. A. Articles by Paul, I. M. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Parent Perception of Healthy Infant and Toddler Growth

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ipaul{at}psu.edu.

	Abstract

We hypothesized that parents of infants prefer growth at higher percentiles and are averse to growth at lower percentiles. Of 279 participating parents, only 10% desired their child’s weight to be in the lowest quartile. For children weighing in the lowest quartile, 57% of parents thought their child’s weight was "too low." In contrast, 66% of parents whose child’s weight was in the top quartile preferred their child weigh that much.When viewing hypothetical infant growth trajectories, 47% ranked a growth chart demonstrating growth along the 10th percentile for weight as "least healthy" of 6 growth patterns, and 29% chose charts showing an infant at the 90th percentile for weight at age 1 as "healthiest." In conclusion, parents are averse to growth at the bottom of the weight growth chart but are much less likely to feel negatively about growth at higher percentiles.This is troubling given the childhood obesity epidemic.

First published on September 10, 2009
Clinical Pediatrics 2009, doi:10.1177/0009922809343717


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?