ABSTRACT

The study demonstrated that the majority of the mothers perceived the weight of their overweight and obese child inaccurately and considered him/ her at a normal weight. Mothers who were aware of the fact that their child was overweight or obese performed various applications to solve the child’s weight problem

The mean age of the mothers was 35.75±5.56. 50% of them had secondary school or below education level. 52.4% of overweight or obese children were girls, and the mean age of the children was 7.94±2.91. Besides, 47.6% of mothers were at a normal weight, 39.2% were overweight and 12.3% were obese. 54.7% of mothers perceived their child’s weight inaccurately.

The study was carried out between April and December 2017 with 212 mothers who agreed to participate voluntarily in the study at a university hospital and a public hospital. The data that were collected using a questionnaire prepared by the researchers were gathered by face-to-face interview method. The questionnaire consists of four parts including demographic information about the mother and the child, mothers’ perceptions of their child’s weight, mothers’ applications for his/her weight and the methods used by mothers and the attitude they had in applying these methods respectively.

This study aimed to determine how mothers with overweight and obese child perceived their child’s weight and how they approached his/her weight problem.