Mother's perception of the weight of the preschooler child's with overweight-obesity

Introduction: childhood obesity is a public health problem worldwide, is a risk factor for multiple physical and socio-emotional problems. For success in interventions to treat overweight, it is necessary for the mother to perceive overweight or obesity in her child. Objective: to identify how mothers perceives the weight of their preschooler child with overweight-obesity and the methods used to assess such perception. Methods: search in the databases Scielo, PubMed, Redalyc and LILACS, in order to identify articles published from 2010 to 2014 whose participants included mothers and preschooler children at age 4-7 years. The descriptors were mother's perception, body weight, childhood obesity, child and their equivalents in English and Portuguese. The final sample consisted of six articles. Conclusions: a high percentage of mothers do not adequately recognize overweight in their children, especially when words and not images are used to assess the perception. Therefore, there is the need for continuing the study of maternal perception of child weight and the impact this has, in order for parents to become involved in managing the treatment of childhood obesity(AU)