Credit: Survivalfarm

A new study from researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that 94.9 percent of parents of overweight children aged 2 to 5 believe their kids’ weights are “just right.”  (emphasis added)The study is a follow-up of a similar survey taken around 20 years ago — most alarmingly, the researchers found that the chances of parents appropriately gauging the weight and health of their children went down by 30 percent.

“We have changed our perceptions of what our weight ideals are,” said Dustin T. Duncan, an assistant professor at NYU’s Department of Population Health and the study’s lead researcher. Because of that, Duncan argues, we are less capable of seeing your child accurately.

“If every other child is obese or overweight, you would think your child is [normal],” he continued.

The study, which was published in the journal Childhood Obesity, focused on a sample of over 3,000 children from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (one sample taken in 1988-1994 and the other from 2007-2012) — instead of on a sample of exclusively overweight kids.

The […]