British parents ‘failing to spot child obesity’

Parents across the UK are struggling to identify whether their children are obese due to the growing normalisation of unhealthy body types, according to a study.

Carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University College London's Institute of Child Health, the research consulted 2,976 families in the UK, finding that only four parents thought their child was very overweight, whereas medical assessments put the figure at 369.

Parents become more likely to classify their children as overweight at the 99.7th centile or above, when in fact the generally accepted centile cut-off for obesity comes at the 85th.

It was also revealed that parents were more likely to underestimate their child's weight if the youngster was black or South Asian, male, older or came from a more deprived background.

Professor Russell Viner, from the Institute of Child Health, told BBC News: "If parents don't recognise a child is obese then they're very unlikely to do anything to help their child move to a more healthy weight."