%0 Journal Article
%T Validity of parent-reported weight and height of preschool children measured at home or estimated without home measurement: a validation study
%A Inge Huybrechts
%A John H Himes
%A Charlene Ottevaere
%A Tineke De Vriendt
%A Willem De Keyzer
%A Bianca Cox
%A Inge Van Trimpont
%A Dirk De Bacquer
%A Stefaan De Henauw
%J BMC Pediatrics
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2431-11-63
%X The subjects were 297 Belgian preschool children (52.9% male). Participation rate was 73%. A questionnaire including questions about height and weight of the children was completed by the parents. Nurses measured height and weight following standardised procedures. International age- and sex-specific BMI cut-off values were employed to determine categories of weight status and obesity.On the group level, no important differences in accuracy of reported height, weight and BMI were identified between parent-measured or estimated values. However, for all 3 parameters, the correlations between parental reports and nurse measurements were higher in the group of children whose body dimensions were measured by the parents. Sensitivity for underweight and overweight/obesity were respectively 73% and 47% when parents measured their child's height and weight, and 55% and 47% when parents estimated values without measurement. Specificity for underweight and overweight/obesity were respectively 82% and 97% when parents measured the children, and 75% and 93% with parent estimations.Diagnostic measures were more accurate when parents measured their child's weight and height at home than when those dimensions were based on parental judgements. When parent-reported data on an individual level is used, the accuracy could be improved by encouraging the parents to measure weight and height of their children at home.With a growing interest in childhood obesity as a factor in child morbidity and adult diseases,[1] valid measures of childhood weight and height are of interest to many researchers. Because of the logistical difficulties and financial costs involved in directly measuring weight and height of children in a survey, such data are often proxy-reported (e.g. by the parents) [2-6]. Previous studies focusing on the validity of parent-reported weight, height and body mass index (BMI) values in children have shown fairly poor accuracy of parentally reported values for classifying ch
%K BMI
%K weight
%K height
%K validity
%K children
%K parent reports
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/11/63