title: Parental misclassification of child overweight/obese status: The role of parental education and parental weight status.
abstract: Childhood overweight and obesity is a major public health challenge for policymakers in many countries. As the most common supervisors of children's activities, parents have a potentially important role to play in obesity prevention. However, a precondition for parents to improve their children's diets, encourage them to be more physically active, or take them to see a doctor about their weight is for the parent to first recognize that their child is overweight or obese. This paper examines the extent of parental misclassification of child weight status, and its correlates, focusing on the role of parental education and the parent's own obesity status. We find evidence that, among non-obese parents, those who are better-educated report their child's weight status more accurately, but among obese parents, the better-educated are 45.18% more likely than parents with lower secondary education to give a false negative report of their child's overweight/obesity; this may reflect social desirability bias.
authors.affiliation: JE Cairnes School of Business & Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland. Electronic address: john.cullinan@nuigalway.ie.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cullinan
authors.affiliation: Department of Policy Analysis and Management and Department of Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, United States. Electronic address: JHC38@cornell.edu.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cawley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D050177:Overweight / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000145:classification* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D012928:Social Desirability
keywords: Child overweight and obesity; Education; Parental misclassification; Reporting error; Social desirability bias