TY - JOUR
T1 - Urban parents' perceptions of healthy infant growth
AU - Sullivan, Stephanie A.
AU - Leite, Kelly
AU - Shaffer, Michele L.
AU - Birch, Leann L.
AU - Paul, Ian
PY - 2011/8/1
Y1 - 2011/8/1
N2 - To examine how urban parents' perceptions of healthy infant size and growth relate to objective weight-for-length percentiles of their children, parents of 222 (69% minority) 6- to 27-month-old infants were surveyed. In all, 41% of parents said growth charts had never been explained to them, and 31% were not confident they understood the meaning of chart percentiles. A total of 20% of parents preferred their child weigh ≥75th percentile, and these children had higher mean weight-for-length percentiles than their peers (P =.05). Similarly, 37% of parents agreed that "a chubby baby is a healthy baby," and these children had higher mean weight-for-length percentiles than others in the cohort ( P =.02). Additionally, 58% of parents ranked a growth curve with consistent growth at the 10th percentile as the "least healthy" of 6 infant growth curves. Growth charts are not consistently explained to or understood by urban parents, and many prefer early life growth patterns associated with later obesity.
AB - To examine how urban parents' perceptions of healthy infant size and growth relate to objective weight-for-length percentiles of their children, parents of 222 (69% minority) 6- to 27-month-old infants were surveyed. In all, 41% of parents said growth charts had never been explained to them, and 31% were not confident they understood the meaning of chart percentiles. A total of 20% of parents preferred their child weigh ≥75th percentile, and these children had higher mean weight-for-length percentiles than their peers (P =.05). Similarly, 37% of parents agreed that "a chubby baby is a healthy baby," and these children had higher mean weight-for-length percentiles than others in the cohort ( P =.02). Additionally, 58% of parents ranked a growth curve with consistent growth at the 10th percentile as the "least healthy" of 6 infant growth curves. Growth charts are not consistently explained to or understood by urban parents, and many prefer early life growth patterns associated with later obesity.
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U2 - 10.1177/0009922811398960
DO - 10.1177/0009922811398960
M3 - Article
C2 - 21357200
AN - SCOPUS:80052535198
VL - 50
SP - 698
EP - 703
JO - Clinical Pediatrics
JF - Clinical Pediatrics
SN - 0009-9228
IS - 8
ER -