title: Seven- to nine-year-old children's own assessment of health-related quality of life is important in preventing overweight and obesity.
abstract: The aim was to study how, and to what degree, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), as assessed by children and their mothers, was related to overweight and obesity among children aged seven to nine years. Mother-child pairs of 149 non-overweight, 95 overweight and 16 obese children participated. We assessed HRQOL by the children's self-report and parent proxy report module of the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales. We found that non-overweight children scored HRQOL slightly higher than overweight ones but significantly higher than did obese children. The same pattern was seen for the mothers' proxy HRQOL score and mothers in general scored higher than the children did. The results indicate that mothers in general were not sufficiently aware of how overweight and obesity affect their children's HRQOL. The psychosocial dimension of HRQOL was the most important aspect for the children. Thus, there is a need for information of mothers/parents about the impact of overweight and obesity on children's HRQOL. Such intervention by health professionals may among other interventions help to prevent and reduce overweight and obesity among children and thus help to increase the children's HRQOL throughout their lives.
authors.affiliation: Hvidovre Hospital, Hvidovre, Copenhagen University, Denmark anne.broedsgaard.madsen@regionh.dk.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brødsgaard
authors.affiliation: Southern Danish University, Vejby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Lis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.affiliation: Hvidovre Hospital, Hvidovre, Copenhagen University, Denmark.
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Peitersen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Preventive Medicine, Frederiksberg, Denmark.
authors.forename: Thorkild I A
authors.initials: TI
authors.lastname: Sørensen
authors.affiliation: Hvidovre Hospital, Hvidovre, Copenhagen University, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ingrid
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Poulsen
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D009765:Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D019727:Proxy; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Child and adolescent mental health; childhood; mother; parenting support; quantitative approaches