Impact of Parental Beliefs and Practices about Child Feeding and Its Impact on Child Weight in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia in 2021

Abstract

Background:

Parental beliefs, attitudes, and feeding practices play a vital role in childhood obesity. Child weight issues can be emotionally challenging for parents. Childhood obesity is a serious public health concern.  Over 33% of children aged 6–11 years old were overweight or obese in the United States. Pediatric obesity and health behavior change are multifaceted phenomena. Child dietary habits (e.g., the consumption of fruits, vegetables, sweets, and soda) are largely influenced by parents and represent an important modifiable factor that families can target to help address or prevent unhealthy weight gain among children, prevalence of overweight, obesity and severe obesity among Saudi children of all age groups varies between 2 to 23.1%, children's obesity is an alarming issue, although childhood obesity has received significant attention over the past few decades, it remains a major public health concern. In the United States, childhood obesity has tripled in the past decade. It is estimated that about 13.7 million children and adolescents are currently obese in the United States .Aim of the study:To assessthe Impact of parental beliefs and practices about child feeding and its impact on child weightin Makkah City, Saudi Arabia in2021Method:Cross-sectional and descriptive study developed in a sample of (200 ) parents' study children, Saudi Arabia 2021. Child feeding, beliefs about childhood obesity, and practices about child feeding were collected. The body mass index of the children was assessed in the school, and their parents responded to a self-administered questionnaire which contained questions on parental perception of the children's weight/obesity status. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS. Results:show there were 200 participants, and the majority age of children parental were(63.0%) in >50 years, regarding sex the majority of them were male(77.0%), while female(23.0%). The most of the participants was married(65.0%) . The majority of nationality were Saudi(75.0%), have university degree (26.0%), regarding occupation (66.0%) employee. Conclusion: This study has furthered scientific understanding of the relation between parental perceptions, concerns, and feeding practices with the child’s obesity and maternal education, and the pressure to eat was negatively associated with BMI z-score of elementary school-aged children and  since influence's which promote obesity in children include numerous factors, this issue must be handled as one of the greatest social and public health challenges at the present time