Association Between Hispanic Parents’ Attitudes and Knowledge Regarding Obesity and Their Children’s Body Mass Index

Abstract

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 13.7 million children experience obesity nationally and Hispanic children display the highest occurrences of obesity for all racial/ethnic groups (Hales et al., 2020). Because parents have a significant influence on their children’s overall health, we were interested in examining whether parents’ attitudes and knowledge about obesity impacted their child’s body mass index (BMI) for their age. We surveyed 210 adult Hispanic parents whose children were receiving general healthcare services at a pediatric medical clinic located near the U.S.-Mexico border. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the estimation between the independent variables (knowledge about obesity, socioeconomic status, education, physical activity, dietary habits, medical history, age, and gender) and the dependent variable (attitudes toward obesity). Specifically, the study examined the relationship between Hispanic children’s BMI-for-age and their parents’ attitudes toward obesity, and the relationship between Hispanic children’s BMI-for-age and their parents’ knowledge regarding obesity-related risks. The results indicated the level of physical activity, dietary habits, and level of knowledge were predictive of Hispanic parents’ attitudes toward obesity. Implications of the study and recommendations for researchers, educators, and counselors to minimize the obesity epidemic are provided.