A significant proportion of children aged 9 to 12 years whose weight is normal think they need to lose weight, a new study has reported.
The data, collected during a national children's food survey, found 30 per cent of normal-weight children wished they were lighter.
Furthermore, 18 per cent of normal-weight children in the study said they had already tried to lose weight. But, interestingly, the study found that over 50 per cent of children who were obese did not feel they needed to lose weight.
The findings were presented yesterday at the summer scientific meeting in Dublin of the faculty of public health medicine at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
Dr Aileen McGloin from the national nutrition surveillance centre at the school of public health and population science at UCD said 278 children were involved in the study and while the data was collected in 2003 and 2004, it had not been analysed or published before.
"To my knowledge there is no data on this in Ireland before, so we have no idea how much this has changed in recent years or was it always like that. I suppose anecdotally you'd say no, that people of that age never thought about their weight before," she said.
The findings were gleaned from asking 135 boys and 143 girls two questions: "Would you like to be heavier, lighter or the same weight?" and "Have you ever tried to lose weight?"
Dr McGloin said the results were an indication children are body conscious. "We'd need far more information to be able to say why this is, or what's different about the children who might be more body-conscious than less body-conscious, and we'll have to look at that in great detail."
It was of concern that half the obese children were not body-conscious, she said. "These results indicate that lack of awareness of weight status may be a barrier for obesity management in a large population of this age group. Equally, normal-weight children might benefit from reassurance that their weight is healthy."
Overall, 30 per cent of normal weight, 39 per cent of overweight and 45 per cent of obese children wished to be lighter while 63 per cent of normal weight, 61 per cent of overweight and 52 per cent of obese children wished to remain the same weight.
Meanwhile 18 per cent of normal weight, 19 per cent of overweight and 39 per cent of obese children had tried to lose weight. Those who were obese, female and older were more likely to have tried losing weight.