Parental optimism about childhood obesity-related disease risks.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Most parents believe childhood obesity is a problem for society, but not for their own children. We sought to understand whether parents' risk assessment was skewed by optimism, the tendency to overestimate one's chances of experiencing positive events.

Methods

We administered a national web-based survey to 502 parents of 5-12-year-old children. Parents reported the chances that (a) their child and (b) 'a typical child in their community' would be overweight or obese, and develop hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression in adulthood. Respondents self-reported demographic and health information, and we obtained demographic and health information about the typical child using zip code-level census and lifestyle data. We used regression models with

SUBMITTER: Wright DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5626577 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature