Maternal awareness of health promotion, parental and preschool childhood obesity - Malta Medical Journal Volume 24 (2012); Issue 1

the Malta Medical Journal has a new website: visits on www.mmsjournals.org

this site will be kept as an archive of older issues

Volume 24, Issue 1 (go to table of contents)

Original Article

Maternal awareness of health promotion, parental and preschool childhood obesity

Sandra C. Buttigieg, Judith Townsend Rocchiccioli, Maria L. Ellul

Malta Medical Journal, 2012: 1; 9

Aim: To investigate the association between parental and preschool childhood obesity, as well as maternal awareness of public health promotion on healthy eating with parental and preschool childhood obesity.
Methods: Data were collected by measuring the height and weight of two hundred randomly selected three-year old children and their parents. Details of the early feeding and dietary styles and level of health promotion awareness were assessed in faceto-face structured health interviews with the parents.
Results: There were statistically significant relationships between childhood obesity and parents’ obesity (r=0.2; p<0.001). A higher proportion of overweight and obese preschool children showed that their mothers lacked awareness of health promotion as compared to children with normally accepted weight (χ2 (6, n=200)=17.32, p=0.008). Maternal awareness of health promotion on healthy eating appeared to have a protective effect against overweight/obesity in three year old children (odds ratio=0.38, 95% CI=0.20 to 0.70). Furthermore, a higher proportion of overweight/obesity mothers had no awareness of health promotion as compared to mothers with normally accepted weight (χ 2 (4, n=200)=13.29, p=0.01). Maternal awareness of health promotion appeared to also have a protective effect against overweight/obesity in mothers (odds ratio=0.51, 95% CI=0.28 to 0.95).
Conclusions: This study showed the protective effect of maternal awareness of health promotion on maternal and preschool childhood obesity. Additionally, this study showed that overweight and obese preschool children had parents who were also overweight and obese.

Keywords:

Preschool childhood, parental, obesity, health promotion

Full content in pdf

ABOUT THE JOURNAL - EDITORIAL MATTERS - INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS - CONTACT THE MMJ

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by other means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission, in writing, of the MMJ Editorial Board.

All articles published in the Malta Medical Journal, including editorials, represent the opinion of the authors and do not reflect the official policy of the University of Malta or the institution with which the author is affiliated, unless this is clearly specified. The appearance of advertising in the Journal is not a guarantee or endorsement of the product or the claims for the product by the manufacturer. The Editorial Board disclaims any responsibility or liability for non-compliance of advertising artwork to Regulatory Units.