Maternal perception of children's nutritional status from public schools in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate maternal perception of children’s nutritional status in elementary school at public schools in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Methods: A cross-sectional study carried out at the beginning of the first semester of 2013 with 495 schoolchildren of both genders, enrolled from first to fourth grades of elementary school in 12 schools in Porto Alegre, with their respective mothers. The agreement between the children’s nutritional status and maternal perception has been assessed through the weighted Kappa test. Chi-squared test was used to assess the association between maternal perception of children’s nutritional status by gender, maternal nutritional status and children’s nutritional status. The results were considered significant when the P value was ≤ 0.05. Results: As for the nutritional status, 0.2% of children were underweight, 61.0% were eutrophic, and 38.4% were overweight. About 51.6% of children with overweight had their nutritional status underestimated by their mothers (Kappa = 0.36; P < 0.001), being 59.1% among boys and 44.3% among girls with overweight (Kappa = 0.27; P < 0.001). Conclusion: The distorted maternal perception of the children’s nutritional status may affect the adoption of healthier lifestyles and result in the development of chronic diseases. Public health strategies focused on understanding the severity of overweight as a health problem and the importance of the family environment are the first step in a campaign to prevent obesity.